Social media has become imperative for all brands looking to have a strong online presence. That’s right, having a website just isn’t enough anymore! The importance of social media as a marketing tool is widely recognized, but there is still an alarming amount of companies who still aren’t using it. Perhaps it’s because you don’t think your customers are on, or you don’t think you have the time to dedicate to it. Well we’re here to tell you that yes, your customers are on it (Facebook has nearly 1.2 billion active users), and no, it’s not time consuming. A successful social media campaign just takes a bit of passion, ingenuity, and consistency to be a hit!
Still not convinced? Take a look at our top ten reasons to get on social media.
1. Be Visible: Social media sites are helpful for checking the credibility and legitimacy of companies they want to do business with. If customers try to seek you out and can’t find you (or find a page with no activity), they probably won’t feel motivated to actually check out your product.
2. Showcase Your Products or Services: Social media provides is great way to show off your products in an informal, conversational way. Highlighting what you offer without coming across like a sales pitch is a challenge that social media lets you hurdle.
3. Enhance Trustworthiness: You can respond to problems (read: angry customers) immediately, allowing transparency between your company and your customers. It’s more helpful than you may realize!
4. Boost Traffic and Search Engine Rank: Wanna know how to get crazy amounts of web traffic? Get on social media. Social media channels consistently bring high volume amounts of traffic to your webpage.
5. Cut Marketing Costs: Using the basic functions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like are great because they’re completely free. Granted, if you want to get a little more fancy (with paid ads or scheduling platforms) you may have to dedicate a bit of your marketing funds to your efforts; however, basic posts, photos, and statuses are completely free!
6. Word of Mouth: On Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn it takes less than half a second to share, retweet, or repin something you like! If your customers share your content with their friends your fan base will grow and grow!
7. Become a Resource: By regularly updating your social media pages about your products, events, and general industry know-how, customers will subconsciously start to view you as an authority.
8. Direct Efforts to Your Target Market: All social media platforms have great tools in place to seek out exactly who you’re looking to target. You can filter by age, location, gender, school, interests, and more.
9. It Shows You’re Relevant: It’s important to keep up with current technology – it shows your brand is continuing to grow. The marketplace is quickly going social and mobile, and being on the latest social networks helps you stay current.
10. Your Competitors Are On It: You can learn a lot from your competition’s social media. The social media marketing arena is a (fairly) even playing field, mostly because nearly 80% of companies are on it! Meaning social media can pretty much knock down barriers between large and small companies marketing-wise. If you aren’t capturing your customers on social media, you better bet that your competitors are!
