Wondering why social media is important for your business?

Let's start with how easy it is to reach a larger audience for your business by using a free tool like social media. Your presence alone on social media casts a broader net with the ability to be found, liked, shared, and followed. This may seem unimportant; however, your personal social media accounts act very differently from your business account. It is one of the first places people will look to find you. With over 2 billion active monthly users on Facebook, 1 billion on Instagram, and 260 million on LinkedIn, this is the marketing opportunity for your business to be seen and heard.

Reason #1: Inexpensive and effective 

Each social media platform is designed with a different purpose and a unique audience.

• Facebook has the most followers of any age range or group. You can customize and create your business page, which allows you to access Facebook advertising tools and review your analytics.

• Instagram is purely visual with an extensive reach to millennials. Gen Z. Your business will have a strong visual presence on this platform. It can use tools like Stories to highlight features and stay top of mind for consumers if used properly.

• LinkedIn is the #1 business networking platform. The new business card for all businesses and business owners. Not only can you create and share your content on LinkedIn, but you have a legitimate presence for your business, let alone recruit top talent if you invest time in setting up a business page on LinkedIn. 

Reason #2: Brand Visibility 

The average social media user is online for 30 minutes a day. On Instagram, 81% of people use its platform to research products and services. From there, 50% of people have clicked a link to a business's website and purchase after seeing a product or service on Instagram. With interaction and engagement over social media, your brand has a unique voice and a platform to promote and share your content:

1. Create a unique brand identity that is personal and speaks to your target audience.

2. Stand out. Everyone should be able to identify and recognize your business from another, specifically your competitors. You get one glance from your viewer, so fine-tuning and optimizing your profiles and visuals will take considerable priority and time. A worthy investment to stand out when you post and be relevant.

3. Get others actively discovering you through the use of hashtags. The more niche your tag is relative to your business, the more it reaches your target community.  

These building block staples for creatively optimizing your brand's presence online aims to generate your unique persona to stand out and be recognized.  

Reason #3: Generate and cultivate leads 

The next step in your social media presence is its effective use in generating and collecting leads through your social media platform. You can gather potential customers and reach out to them for special promotions or share content and news that would be relevant to them.

Start with your online business profile, which provides the many ways your customer can; contact you, message you, email you, sign up to hear from you, or shop your services. 

Lead generation works as an organic engagement C2B, whereby your potential customer shares their information with you, as above. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create buttons on your profiles, known as a call to action. You are creating through suggestion a clear and actionable means for your customer to take the next step, to get closer to you.

For example, on Facebook, you can add a Sign Up here button on your Facebook page.

On Instagram, add a Link in BIO option that you can tag in your posts. Your link in BIO can be customized to link to your website or a specific page that you want to promote.  

Reason #4: Promote your content 

Through your efforts in lead generation, you now can review and analyze your content that has performed its best. With that selection in mind, you can start to promote these pieces of content to reach a target demographic, perhaps your competitor's audience.

Have you ever clicked on a Facebook or Instagram ad? They are by far the most commonly used platforms for using social leads. They offer retargeting tools and an ad format, 'Facebook ads' for marketers.

Instagram has a very similar premise and is done through the Facebook ad manager. You will build your ad, set a budget to promote it, and measure its performance. Running social ads vs. traditional advertising is a fantastic cost-effective alternative for small businesses.

Reason #5: Real-time customer service and feedback 

The importance of your unique brand's voice is to your business; having a definitive social media presence that is monitored and managed daily is your link to your customer in real-time.

Not only do customers visit you for discovery and to shop or pursue your service, but they are also there to directly contact you for customer service. 

They reach out to your platforms quickly and down to the point. Users are looking for resolution in the form that they are most comfortable with, direct messaging. All customers want to be heard, and if they have a concern, an immediate follow-up. This may seem daunting, but with proper management of your social feeds, you have a positive, well-articulated, and efficient way to interact with your customer directly. You want to protect your reputation and address concerns, comments, and feedback. Your social media forum allows for positive feedback and continual engagement, creating a positive momentum of continual presence and trust with your audience. 

Conclusion:

From Facebook to Instagram, marketing your business on social media takes commitment to developing an effective marketing strategy and dedicated daily management of your social channels. Not every social media platform is right for your business, either. It can seem like a lot because it is! Knowing which platform is best for reaching your target audience and will provide the most value is where we come in. 

Healthy Dash of Social is a full-service digital marketing agency for product brands and non-profits. Our team of experts is ready to take on your social media management, content creation, email marketing, influencer marketing, and other digital marketing needs. Click here to view our services and schedule your free 30-minute chat.