Online Marketing Blog
Post By: The ARRC
Online Marketing Experts and Creative Content Designers
According to SmallBizTrends, 78% of the population has a social media profile and 1.79 billion people actively access Facebook every month.
Whether your business is a traditional brick-and-mortar business or purely online, you need your business to be where your customers are spending their time – and that’s on social media!
Keep reading to find out 7 Reasons Every Business Needs Social Media Marketing:
1. Social Media Allows You to Target Customers
Keep in mind, your goal is not to become a social media celebrity, but to build your brand in a way that generates leads.
The beauty of Social Media is that it allows for Targeted Online Marketing. For example, on Facebook you can direct your audience to your website’s recent blog article and spend money to boost it out to specific group of people based on age, gender, location, interests, job title, income, and more.
With the proper online marketing strategy, you can target a very specific audience without having to worry about appeasing the masses.
2. Control Your Online Profiles
Your business needs to own its online real estate. This means that when a prospective customer or client is looking for your products or services, they can find you.
What’s more, they can learn more about you and find out all the great things about your company in a setting that you can control. Once your business has a social media platform, you have complete control over what you put in your social media profiles and what you post on your social media accounts.
Unlike old school traditional phone books or even online directories where just your business name is listed, your prospects can get the full introduction you want.
As the familiar adage goes, nothing beats a great first impression!
3. Social Media Increases Brand Awareness and Loyalty
By creating and keeping the right social media profiles current, your business increases its recognition.
When people come to visit you on social media and find fresh content that is engaging, they are more likely to share your content with others, increasing your brand awareness.
The fact that brand loyalty was increased favorably by the use of social media when certain strategies were used was confirmed by a ScienceDirect study. The factors they found most effective were that the business offered advantageous campaigns and relevant and popular content over several social media platforms.
4. Social Media Builds Trust with Customers
Trust is important. When customers see that your business has a strong online presence, it makes them feel more comfortable doing business with you. They see that you’re a “real” business and put effort into what you do.
On the flip side, if a customer looks for you online and finds empty social media pages or a poorly designed website, they will have trouble relating to your message and dismiss your business as untrustworthy.
5. Rank Higher in Google Search Results (SEO)
Having your business present on popular social media platforms will result in more people visiting your website.
For example, if you post a link to your blog on your Facebook, you will be increasing the traffic of your business website. When more people visit your business website, Google/Bing/Yahoo will rank your website above other websites that don’t have as many visitors or content as you do. This is a fundamental part of SEO marketing.
6. Customer Feedback
Being available on social media to interact with your customers and clients means they have a 24/7 pathway to connecting with you. They will be able to discuss their experiences with your business.
Experiences that will be seen by everyone viewing your page or theirs. A study by Forrester revealed that 70% of all adults trust each other’s statements more than brands. Your social media pages will provide a place for them to find these messages right alongside your brand’s message.
Whether the feedback is good or bad isn’t the entire point either, not really. Both can help your business!
Even if some posts are less than stellar, you can use that as an opportunity to fix whatever the poster was complaining about. And, by doing so in public, the rest of your audience will see that your business cares about its customers and in making things right.
7. Opt-In Subscribers/Followers
When people follow or subscribe to your business on social media, they are opting in to hear what your business has to say. Use that as an opportunity to educate them about your business.
To build trust, you can help them solve problems related to your field of business. If you do, you will be providing value to your current and future customers.
Which Social Media platforms should your business use?
A study indicated that the top social media platforms, in order of the most used, are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and WhatsApp. It also indicated that adults usually use three different social media apps.
Deciding which social media platform to use depends a lot on your type of business. For business-to-business (b2b), consider using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For business-to-consumer (b2c), Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are the three to consider first.
What if you don’t have time to learn how to use social media marketing, create new content every week, and manage the campaigns?
Investing in a solid Social Media campaign strategy is a lot like investing in yourself, if you’re not willing to invest in your business – why should your customers?
That said, it is understandable that you can’t do everything yourself. Consider hiring staff to handle in-house marketing. Additionally, consider hiring an Online Marketing Agency to save money (no staff payroll required) and receive quality results.
For more tips about Online Marketing, Web Development, and SEO Content, subscribe to our blog or contact us directly for more information.
The ARRC is an Online Marketing Agency with over 20 years of experience, with hundreds of satisfied customers nationwide. The ARRC is proud to be Veteran Owned.
