With more than four billion active users, social media is a quick, easy and low-cost way to reach half the world. The average person now has seven social media accounts and spends around 95 minutes daily on various platforms. With the proper social media marketing, you can reach them every day, every time they log in!Your business may already have a social media presence. 97% of Fortune 500 companies use at least one social media channel, and over 50 million small businesses use Facebook Pages alone. If you don’t yet have a social media presence for your business, the benefits of investing in one are massive. 90% of marketers have said social media has increased business exposure, and 75% have said it has increased traffic. Even if you’re already across several channels, having a social media service with a marketing professional is a good idea to strengthen your strategy and ensure you’re reaping as much revenue as possible.
This article explores the benefits of social media for your business and how Anchor Digital can make your social media reach further than ever before.
What is Social Media?
Social media is digital technology such as apps and websites that allow users to create and share information with the public in real-time. By nature, it’s user-generated and interactive.
Different types of social media platforms
Social media comes in several different styles, including:Social networks: These sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are all about connecting and staying connected with family, friends, business contacts, brands, public figures etc.Review sites: Sites like Yelp, Trustpilot and TripAdvisor allow members of the public to share ratings and reviews of their experiences with businesses.
Image/media sharing networks: Sites like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram allow users to share photos and videos along with text.
Discussion boards: Forum-style sites like Reddit and Quora give users the chance to ask questions and have discussions across an endless number of categories.
Hobbies and interest-based networks: Sites like Goodreads and Last.fm connect users based on their specific interests.
Which social media platforms are good for your business?
Facebook: If Facebook’s 2.91 billion monthly active users aren’t enough to convince you, there are plenty of other reasons you should use the social media service. Starting a Facebook page is free; you can target your ad at specific audiences and access easy-to-read metrics, and in 2021 Facebook’s ad revenue hit $115 billion.
Instagram: Instagram attracts many younger, female and minority users, so it’s an excellent social media advertising tool for specific demographics. 60% of users seek out new products on Instagram, and influencers and brand ambassadors can help you reach a larger audience.
YouTube: Social video attracts 1200% more shares than images and text combined, with marketers that use it growing revenue at a 49% faster rate than those that don’t. YouTube is the largest video-sharing site on the web, with more than two billion users and revenue to be made both from advertising and from your own channel.
LinkedIn: A site for professional connections with over half a billion active users, LinkedIn is excellent for content tailored to professionals in certain fields. You can even find your next employee there.
Benefits of Social Media for Your Business
Social media marketing and advertising have an incredible amount of benefits for your business, including:
1. Increases brand awareness
Brand awareness is the extent to which the public is familiar with your brand. Considering the size of the internet and the sheer number of social media users, it almost goes without saying that having a social media presence will further your reach. Social media services have become a popular tool for researching brands, to the point where they’ve surpassed search engines in the 16-24-year-old age bracket.
2. Humanises your brand
With a social media account, your customers can interact with you in the same way they would any other person. This builds connection and helps you appear more trustworthy. You can humanise your brand in several different ways: write warm and witty posts, send personalised e-mails, show some behind-the-scenes photos of your staff and reply to public comments in a friendly, helpful way. Familiarity builds trust. The more customers feel like they know you, the more loyal they’re likely to be.
3. Increases website traffic
Almost nine out of 10 marketers say that social media helps drive traffic to their website, and 82% say they re-publish content across different channels. There are techniques you can use to drive more traffic to your website. You can enhance your credibility by including reviews and testimonials, use a scheduling tool or your own data to plan the best time to post for engagement and include share buttons and call-to-actions. And if you have a knack for humour, you’re in luck: 80% of marketers say funny content performs best.
4. It generates leads and sales
Just like you can draw people to your website with your social media posts, you can also lead them into your sales funnel. A social media user might start following your page but may not be ready to buy something yet. By creating engaging posts, using tools like Chatbots and focusing on building a sense of familiarity and community, you can turn those who are “just looking” in your online marketplace into loyal repeat customers.
5. It allows you to promote your content
You can create the ideal blog post: well-written, engaging and SEO-optimised, but there’s still the question of how to get it out there. Social media gives you an avenue besides hoping it will rank on the front page of Google. With social media, you can even share the same blog post across different accounts, tweaking the caption, image, hashtags etc., for the one you’re using. Depending on the social media service, there are ways to optimise your post to increase the clicks: use high-quality images, come up with a headline that hooks and use hashtags in a discerning way (they’re better on Instagram than they are on Facebook, for example).
6. Great place to source content
By reading your customer’s comments on social media and paying attention to their likes, dislikes and opinions, you gain insights into what sort of content appeals to them. ‘Crowdsourcing’ poses a question to your social media followers to spark a discussion. You can do with that information what you will: take feedback on board to improve your business practices, use it as inspiration for campaigns or let it inform what kind of content your followers want to see.
7. Customer and audience communication
Social media enables the communication between you and your customers, building familiarity and strengthening relationships. This arena of open communication makes it easier for you to get to know your customers and reach out to find new ones. How to respond to feedback, both positive and negative, in a public forum and whether you take the feedback on board in how you do business will send a very public message. Done right, it will enhance your credibility and trust.
8. Learn more about your customers
As you communicate regularly with your customers, you’ll inevitably learn more about them: their demographics and preferences. This allows you to create social media advertising and marketing campaigns tailored to their specific interests, as well as take on board their feedback for the benefit of your business.
9. Keep an eye on the competition
Social media gives you the chance to see exactly what your competition is up to without fancy tools and without the need to be deceptive or sneaky. They won’t even know you’re looking at their accounts! You can check in on how their ad campaigns are going, what kind of content they’re posting and how their customers are responding, taking what’s useful on board so you can strengthen your social strategy.
10. Stay on top of industry news
If there’s any news in your industry, you’re likely to discover it on social media first! Social media services such as Instagram and Twitter, as well as blogs, often feature up-to-the-minute snippets of info. Even if you just pick a few top industry accounts to follow, it will help you stay in the loop.
How We Can Help Grow Your Business with Social Media
For social media marketing that hooks prospective buyers, contact Anchor Digital.
As Brisbane’s leading social media agency, Anchor Digital focus on social solutions designed to boost brand awareness and drive conversions.
We’ll increase your likes, shares, mentions and conversions with a social media strategy that covers every aspect of your approach: social media marketing, social media advertising, social media audits, social media strategy and social media management.
We’ll guide your approach, play to your strengths, amplify your voice and increase your profits using the social media services that are most naturally suited to your business. Our in-house specialists use sophisticated data analysis tools to deliver compelling experiences to your customers.
Drop us a line for some serious social climbing.
