The benefits of social media for business can be evaluated from several angles. The first one is that around 5 billion people use social media to some degree and social media usage has soared in the last 5 years and become an integral part of a human socioeconomic presentation to the world. It is time for the companies to leverage influence social media offers in unprecedented levels of connection and engagement.
Social media usage:
Social media presence and its benefits can be described in 4 basic categories:
- Communication
- Engagement
- Advertising
- Data Analytics
Each category represents the value business can acquire while doing social media activity.
Communication:
The main channels of communication on social media are comments and messages. Customers will always pick the easiest and simplest way to get an answer to their questions. Companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have become the preferred medium of social interaction that offers a more personal touch than email communication or phone calls.
Feedback in reviews on your products and services can make all the difference for a business. Wouldn’t it be great to hear what customers really think about you and your brand?
“55 % of enterprises reported using social media to obtain customer opinions or reviews, or to answer their questions”
In today’s increasingly digital world, customer service has evolved dramatically. Nowadays, many consumers prefer to turn to social media platforms to express their concerns and reach out for help.
– Reach out to people who are interested in your business.
– Be able to respond to questions, comments, and reviews.
– Build relationships with your customers.
– Stay in touch with your customers.
– Get real-time feedback from your customers.
TIP: Customer reviews across multiple sites can also help increase traffic to your business as it’s easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find them.
Engagement
Engagement is one of the most used words in the social media marketing world. But what does engagement really mean?
Engagement on social media is a powerful metric that captures the ratio of clicks, comments, shares, and likes. However, it often involves certain time-intensive tasks such as real-time engagement throughout the day with your followers while also looking to create more organic reach through original content in order to have consistent growth with your community.
Technical benefits:
– Get more traffic to your website
– Increase the number of followers on your social media profiles.
Emotional benefits:
– Increase your brand awareness.
– Build a strong community.
“85 % of small enterprises and 87 % of large enterprises used social media to build their image or market products”
Have you ever wondered how successful brands and business owners attract their audience’s attention? Do they have a team of social media managers or is it something that comes naturally to them? These people are very much aware of what kind of content performs best on each network. They know exactly when and in which language should be published for maximum effectiveness.
TIP: Customers that are engaged by content on company social media pages are more likely to buy products or services offered by that company.
Advertising
Facebook ads let you build a target audience for your business by displaying your ads to people who have visited your website, or who belong to groups of people with common interests, demographics, or behaviors.
You can develop a tracking and monitoring system to continually follow your customers’ engagement with your business, brand, and products, allowing you to adjust your strategy on the fly to deliver relevant content to them.
When it comes to purchasing ads for social media marketing, the biggest challenge most businesses face is determining the best investment level. There are a number of ways to determine the proper allocation, from using historical data to developing strategic estimates. (using historical data to develop complex strategic estimates).
TIP: You can precisely narrow down your Facebook audience to increase the likelihood of purchasing your product or service while reducing the cost.
– Reach people who are most likely to buy your products.
– Connect with your existing customers
– Get new customers and leads
– Promote your business, products, and services.
– Get a higher return on your advertising spend
– Get more exposure for your business.
Data Analytics
Data Analytics, is the word you heard often in Digital marketing circles, but what is the true meaning and why do I need it?
By definition, it is a structural way of collecting, storing, and analyzing data you gather. Data can be collected from numerous sources and we can categorize it as:
- Web Analytics data
- Social Media data
- Secondary data sources (all data collected by other people and shared online) e.g. statistics of a survey conducted about the usage of a new social media platform in the United States.
After the data is collected and stored, we can do the following with analyzing it:
- Understand why someone has taken an action online and what links they clicked
- Reduce advertising costs and increase revenue
- Measure customer activity holistically
- Eliminate human bias allowing for consistent decision-making
- Find answers to vital business questions
It’s only when the importance of digital analytics in business is fully understood that companies can have the best results.
Social media presence is getting more important for business each day. Competition is growing and smart use of social media channels is really something that can give your company a competitive edge. We are still in the age where some companies overlook the importance of Internet marketing and with that, they are leaving a lot on the table for their competitors to take. Take a step forward and take full advantage of the power that social media channels have to elevate your business forward.