7 Valuable Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For Your Business
Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For Business You May Not Have Considered
Tackling social media as a business may feel like a pointless endeavor. You may questions whether there are any benefits to social media marketing over traditional marketing and be tempted to ask yourself, “Is being on this platform accomplishing anything?” or, “Am I wasting my time?” With every social media platform set up so differently, it may feel overwhelming to learn and implement a strategy for each one or you may feel like it’s not worth it and won’t impact your business if you simply shy away from them all.
Even as a blogger I’ve found myself wondering if all of the work to maintain social media accounts is worth it. When I first started my blog I learned and used Pinterest but barely touched any of the big social media platforms. My blog gained traffic this way, but my blog as a business was also hindered in many ways by not participating on social media platforms.
It would not destroy my blog if I decided not to be on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but I became convinced that having no presence on these sites would also limit my ability to grow and to achieve the type of connection and reach that I wanted. I’m still learning many social media platforms but, as an entrepreneur in our current day and age, I am convinced that using social media is a must for me to grow.
In this post, I want to discuss with you what makes a site a social media platform. I also want to outline for you 7 specific benefits of using social media as a marketing tool for your business. It is my goal to help you understand the role that social media can play for your business and, therefore, to help you discern a strategy for it that helps your business to thrive!
What makes a site a social media platform?
I just want to briefly touch on the question of what makes a site a social media platform because I think it is important to clarify that not every site that comes to mind when you think of a social media platform actually functions as one. For example, though it is popularly thought of as one – Pinterest DOES NOT function as a social media platform. It is actually more of a search engine for content (similar to Google). While it does allow for more comments and interaction with content than a typical search engine, the site uses an algorithm (like Google) to categorize content and display it for searches or to those following relevant topics.
For the purposes of this post, I am defining social media platforms as sites where content is posted for the purpose of engaging with others, inter-connecting and sharing “life.” This includes platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For A Business
Below are 7 benefits of marketing through social media for your business.
1. Connection
Social media allows you to connect with your customers and/or target market in ways that even your own website simply cannot do. You can include a “contact me” form on your website or direct customers to a phone number or email. You can even have a live chat feature on your website. However, being on social media platforms creates a low-key and comfortable way for customers or potential customers to interact with and contact you – a way that is right at their fingertips as they browse their favorite social platform.
Being active on social media platforms makes it easier for customers or potential customers to contact you by simply direct messaging instead of navigating the more formal process of submitting a form through your website, calling, or emailing you.
In addition, if you are actively posting on social media as a business it means that your customers or potential customers have a regular opportunity to be commenting on your posts. This gives you a great opportunity to interact with them, as well as to create a relatability about your company that helps your customers or potential customers to see you as approachable and “real.”
2. Brand Awareness
One of the benefits of using social media for marketing is that it’s a great FREE way to build your brand awareness! If you want the public to recognize your brand and remember that you are out there, you need to be getting your brand in front of them. Some companies do this by utilizing traditional marketing means like tv commercials, billboards, radio ads and more. However, on social media, you can get your brand regularly in front of the public without paying a dime! This is a huge benefit.
3. Advertising Opportunities
On many social media platforms, you need to have content already published on the site to promote if you want to run any kind of advertising campaign for your business. Therefore, if any of your target market spends time on social media, you will miss out on great advertising opportunities if you do not have a presence on the platform!
Social media platforms allow you to promote your posts to targetted audiences, which helps you to reach your customers as they browse and interact on the platforms. Having even a bare-bones presence on social media sites gives you the ability to promote posts and reach new people.
4. Networking Opportunities
Having a social media presence is important for your business because it also allows you unique opportunities to network with others in your niche! There are Facebook groups for EVERYTHING, and they are a great way to interact, share ideas, collaborate, or learn from others in your line of business.
For example, I am a part of multiple Facebook groups for bloggers. These groups have helped me to learn, kept me up to date on trends that I need to be aware of, connected me with resources that have helped me grow, and more! Being a part of these groups has been pivotal to my success.
If you’re not on social media, you’re missing valuable opportunities to connect with others and grow!
5. Communication Of Promotions
With so much of the world connected on social media these days, it has become a great place to keep your customers informed of sales or promotions. Even if you have an email or mailing list for your customers, sharing a promotion on social media is important. It allows your loyal customers to easily SHARE your promotion with others and provides a second place for them to see it if they missed a mailing or overlooked an email!
6. Relevancy
If you don’t have a social media presence in today’s day and age it could make you look antiquated and out of touch. With so much of our culture revolving around information on the various social platforms, it could be very difficult to keep your business appealing to the culture without engaging on the platforms yourself.
Even if you don’t see a need to be engaged on social media for any of the other reasons listed above, you may find that having social media accounts for your business is still important simply to help your brand remain relevant to a social media-saturated world.
7. Product Imagery & Demonstrations
If you run a product-based business, having a social media account also offers the sometimes-overlooked benefit of being able to post product photos and videos. While you probably have a website that provides images of your products, how often do your customers visit your site unless they are already planning to purchase something?
On social media, you can regularly post photos of your products in use, create video demonstrations of your products, introduce new products with imagery, and more. Your customers and/or target market will see these posts even when they aren’t already in the mindset to purchase! In addition, each post that you create is also able to be promoted to reach new audiences (per #3 above).
If your business is not on social media (or you’ve wondered why you are bothering to maintain a presence there), then I hope that the points above help to convince you of how important and valuable it is to engage on social media as a business.
Social media has become an undeniable source of daily information, trend awareness, and connection for people all across the globe – including your customers and target market! Don’t miss out on the ways that it can benefit your business.
If you haven’t yet established a road map for all of your business promotion or narrowed down the best ways to elevate your brand with and beyond the use of social media, make sure you also check out my post on how to build a marketing strategy!
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