The list of reasons as to why your business needs a social presence are endless. It has become an essential part to any modern-day business. Especially in the midst of a global pandemic, where your next customer is stuck at home online, right now. With that in mind, let’s narrow it down and highlight some of the key benefits social media can add to your business.
Brand Awareness
Let’s paint a picture. The year is 2000; you’ve set up a billboard above a prominent highway where you’re guaranteed thousands of people to drive past every day and view your sign. Your billboard is a once-off static message that is only able to reach a specific, limited audience. You have no way of measuring or monitoring the success of your advertisement and your audience has no way of connecting or engaging with your business. The people that do view your billboard will potentially become aware of your business and when they are next in need of the product or service you offer, may remember you and look to you for assistance. Here’s hoping, right?
Flash forward to 2021; your business has a social media page. You post regular content using hashtags that are relevant to your audience, whilst making use of frequent paid promotions. You’re able to tailor-make your promotions to your desired demographic and customers who do land on your page or promotions are able to ‘follow’ you and/or easily contact you. You’re also able to measure the success of your content in trackable data and use this going forward to better your page. The possibilities of who you’re able to reach are endless and over time, you’re able to build up a credible social media community, whilst continuing to grow your network daily.
This means you’re creating an opportunity to not only share but to be shared by others. We’re not necessarily talking about going ‘viral’ here, but you have made it easier for people to talk about you. Any business’ main goal (outside of making moola) is to be well-known, to be recognised. That means that your business is the first name on the tip of people’s tongues when it comes to your area of expertise. If people don’t know about your business, they can’t become your customers.
Find out more about what a brand is here.
Increase in website traffic
Following on from the topic of sharing content and having others share it as well, one of the other benefits of social media is that it also helps increase your website traffic. At the end of the day, you are using social media as an outlet to give users a reason to click-through to your website. The more content you share, or should I say, the more quality content you share (quality over quantity, always), the more inbound traffic you will generate.
Just think, whenever you update your website or post to your social media channels, you have a whole community at your fingertips that you are alerting about your latest content piece, whatever that may be. On the other side of the coin, when you post a new blog or update your homepage, it can take a while to get traction with Google. That means very few customers will know the new content is there until the next time they’re searching for your product or service.
Read more about how social media increases website traffic here.
Connect with your audience
No one knows your customers better than you, right? So why not give them the opportunity to know you as well. Having trust and familiarity in a brand can go a long way toward building a long-term relationship with customers.
Using your social media as a platform to connect with your customers rather than chasing the hard-sell can transform your brand. We all know those accounts that you can’t ‘unfollow’ fast enough due to the constant product overload you are bombarded with on their pages. Focus on building connections with influencers and well-known names in your industry, and on sharing interesting topics of conversation that your followers will be able to relate to and enjoy. Over time, you’ll become more than a brand — you’ll become a part of a community.
Boost sales and generate leads
No matter what you sell, social media can help you sell it (did I just come up with another title for this blog? Underline that, highlight it, write it across your forehead – that’s the important info right there).
Social media offers an easy way for potential customers to express interest in your business and your products. Lead generation is such an important benefit to social media that many social networks have incorporated tools on their platforms for businesses with this end goal in mind. With just a few taps on a post on your newsfeed, or on a business’s page, you’re able to get in touch with the brand directly, sign-up to their weekly newsletter or potentially buy the product or service being advertised. Let’s face it, in this day and age if it’s not easy, fast and convenient, people don’t want any part in it.
Social Media Marketing can be fun
Yes, read that again. Social media can be fun! Granted it’s probably not the first thing on the list of priorities when it comes to running a successful business, but if there is an outlet that allows you to incorporate some fun into your day-to-day tasks, why not? Social media is your little space of the internet where you can do anything and everything that you would like to do; it’s a space where you can express and create the brand image you would like to portray to your customer. Building connections, creating content, learning from your competitors and reflecting on your business’s journey as you continue to monitor its growth.
By this point, it’s obvious you’re convinced and you’re wanting to take the next step to starting your social media page. Where to from here? It does seem very daunting and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Take the first step, create a profile. That’s the hardest part. Once you’re officially online you can start planning your content and start engaging with your customers. Before you know it, you’ll be hooked. With all the added benefits to your business, you can’t afford not to. The earlier you start, the faster you’ll see growth in your business.
Here at Flume, our clients come first. We offer various services, including web, app, platform production, SEO, Data Analytics, digital strategy, creative production, and publishing. Whether you need to revamp your website or create engaging social media content, Flume has the expertise to make it happen. So why wait? Contact us today to learn how Flume can help your business thrive in the digital world!
