If you run a business of any type, size, or scale, you need a social media presence, and if in 2022, you still don’t take full advantage of this potential gold mine of a revenue stream, then you are seriously harming your companies chances of success.
What might have been forgivable in 2002 is now no longer a good enough excuse, and those who approach the idea of using social media for marketing purposes in a less than professional manner are almost certainly paying the price for doing so every single day.
There are a number of key reasons to make sure you are visible on social media channels, here are just a few of them.
Exposure
Exposure is a key reason to open, run, and maintain a strong social media presence. This is true of small businesses as well as multinational companies. Being able to communicate directly to your customers and those who may become customers in the future is hugely important.
Don’t forget just how many people are on social media channels for hours a day; this is your chance to speak to them, to promote yourself and your products and services. This all feeds into the key aspects of brand awareness.
Having a social media channel, especially one that is well run by professionals in the field (as opposed to you trying to do so yourself), will help to broaden your standing and increase your potential customer base.
Advertising
Even a small family-run business, perhaps one that employs only a handful of people, can still benefit from advertising its services via social media channels. Making a simple commercial to run on your business channels requires nothing more than video editing software, a smartphone, and great ideas.
Gone are the days of traditional advertising via TV or paper media; now, you can talk to your customers, and the internet as a whole, in a way that is far easier to track and monitor.
Advertising via social media channels is a far more effective model than old-style campaigns, chiefly because you are directing your messaging specifically to an audience that has an interest in what you have to say, rather than a scattergun approach of old.
Sales
By having social media channels, you can also look to complete sales and convert leads; if you are not already doing so, you are some way behind the curve. A great deal of business is being done directly in this manner, and it’s far more effective and less expensive than other sales funnels.
Using ads on these channels is also far more cost-effective than other outdated forms of advertising, and the sales you can achieve via these funnels are a much better fit for the 21st century.
Improved Customer Satisfaction
If you run social media channels well, you’ll be dealing directly with customers daily and responding to their queries and needs. This helps to foster a more beneficial relationship across the board, which in turn will help to improve your company’s overall voice.
Responding in a timely fashion to messages is a good way to start; offering discounts or offers to those who follow you is another way to incentivize and grow customer loyalty.
Search Engine Placement
Do you want to appear on page one on key searches? Well, if you have social media channels that are regularly updated, and you run them effectively, then you can help your overall online footprint, and that will help to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in an organic and healthy manner.
Interaction
Perhaps you’ve released a product, but it’s not selling so well or is proven less effective as a revenue stream than you had hoped. Well, via social media channels, you can get more of an idea of potential flaws and issues. Fans of your accounts can discuss issues directly with you as well as offer you a good source of feedback that you can use to better shape your company strategy as a whole.
Data
Want to know more about your customers? One of the biggest factors behind the success of social media as a source of revenue is down to the data that is secured from the behavior of those online.
It’s now much easier to ascertain important information, be that in relation to demographics or purchasing history, that can be used to better monetize your company and the products and services it sells.
Important Side Note
We can’t urge you enough when it comes to using social media channels to help build your brand, but it’s also very important to know that doing so should be undertaken with a level of expectation management.
Firstly, look to employ professionals in this market, a whole team if necessary, and then allow them time to build things in as organic a fashion as possible.
It will take a while for these pages to build, and you should avoid buying likes and follows as well as other overly-aggressive measures that won’t help in the long run, such as bombarding people with adverts for your services.
Once these are running, you’ll see the benefits of them in the short, medium, and long term.
