Many business owners enter the world of social media marketing believing that it will immediately take their business from zero to 100 in just a few clicks. However, this expectation isn’t realistic. Social media marketing takes time, effort, and a well-developed strategy. Enough momentum also needs to be kick-started and maintained to start seeing a notable increase in ROI.
So, if you’re wondering if you should be leveraging social media marketing for your business, the short answer is ‘yes’. No matter what industry your business is a part of; here are five reasons why social media will work for you:
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1. Sophisticated Targeting
The biggest advantage to social media marketing is the ability to target your ideal audience – much more accurately when compared to traditional marketing tactics.
Through Facebook Ad Campaigns, you can target individuals based on age, gender, location, household income, interests, education, workplaces, languages, relationship status, parenting status, and so much more! Sophisticated targeting has proven to be an incredibly valuable tool for getting your ads in front of the right people. Almost 90% of marketers say their social marketing efforts have increased exposure for their business, and over 50% of marketers who have been implementing social media marketing tactics for two years have reported improved sales.
2. Real-Time Feedback
Social media marketing allows businesses to receive feedback on their products and services in real-time.
When you put out a new product or service, you can immediately start tracking how well it’s doing based on how many people are talking about it, what is being said, and what comments and concerns people are leaving. This provides a great foundation for businesses to decide what changes or improvements to make.
In addition, real-time feedback provides great insight into ad campaigns. In traditional marketing, once you put out an ad in a newspaper, there is no way for you to stop the ad from running or to make any changes. However, with social media marketing, you can pause or completely stop the ad campaign if you notice that it is not doing as well as you hoped. You can then make changes to the ad or create a new ad campaign. Being able to edit your posts will save you a ton of money and will ensure that your marketing dollars are being spent wisely.
3. Build Relationships with Customers
Social media has the power to transform big companies into organizations of everyday people through humanization.
Through social media, you are able to share the ‘real’ side of your company, from photos and videos of company events or employee milestones, to simply having a conversation with a customer in the comment section of a Facebook post. Not only will this make your brand more relatable, it will also improve customer loyalty.
Loyal customers who feel valued, listened to, and appreciated are typically more willing to share what they love about your company online. Loyal customers are also more likely to try out new products or services (when you release them) and leave a positive review – which will help to build your brand awareness.
4. Brand Awareness
Brand awareness refers to the extent of which customers are able to recognize a brand – which is central to purchasing decision-making.
Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a product, and social media gives your business the perfect opportunity to show off your brand to the right people. Through sophisticated targeting and real-time feedback, you’ll get an idea of what type of content works best for your target audience. By building brand awareness using this knowledge, you are also able to increase brand loyalty and build better relationships with your customers.
5. Know Your Competitors
If you analyze the social media efforts of other businesses, you’ll find insights to improve your own social media marketing.
Chances are, your competitors are on social media. This is your opportunity to directly see what types of content they are posting and what’s working and not working for them. You can search the interests of people who like your competitors Facebook pages, analyze their twitter audiences, monitor keywords, identify industry influencers that your competitors are taking advantage of, and discover the best hashtags to use with your posts.
Are you ready to use social media to your advantage?