All business owners know that it is essential to ensure customers know you exist and how to purchase from you. This is the role of marketing. Different marketing techniques will work for different businesses, so it is essential to test different forms of marketing to identify which works best for you.
The cost of marketing can be restrictive for many businesses. However, the introduction of social media has provided a free platform that all businesses can use to get their business in front of potential customers.
Hands down, social media has become the most powerful tool that businesses use to engage with customers and drive revenue and growth. However, most business owners haven’t even taken advantage of social media’s full potential yet.
Here are some of the reasons why social media marketing is crucial to business growth:
People buy from people they like
You may assume that people buy the best solution for them, yet it’s a proven fact that we are driven by emotions and are much more likely to buy from someone we like. Social media is a great way to introduce the person behind the business. This allows customers to connect with you on a personal level, allowing the customer to establish a relationship with you and your business.
Successful businesses follow the 80/20 rule in social media posts. They keep the focus on their customers, allowing 80% of their posts to be about their customers’ needs and interests and 20% about the business. The main goal is to keep the customers interested (and make them feel like they themselves are interesting).
You create loyalty and a position of trust
By using social media to share useful information with customers and potential customers, you can encourage them to interact and engage with your business. This helps to build up trust and create loyalty. You will get more followers and become more influential by regularly posting useful information. As the network expands, so should the business. Not only will the followers become loyal customers or clients, but they are also more likely to refer your business to their friends and family.
To make sure that you’re effectively utilising your social media platforms, here are some tips:
- Create content that is consistent with your business’s identity and caters to your target audience.
- Efficiently utilise social media by mirroring your hours on Twitter to the hours of your support team’s operations.
- How frequently you post on social media will influence the amount of traffic you generate and leads you receive.
- Build an online community by asking for feedback and actually putting those comments to good use. Also, don’t forget to express gratitude for receiving them.
- Post blogs about the solutions your product and/or service can provide for your customers and not about the product and/or service itself.
- Develop a social media strategy with the help of social media specialists.
- Review the social media ROI with the help of a social media analyst.
- Always take into consideration the scheduling of your posts — time, day, date, month and season.
- Plan and stick to an editorial calendar to help you with consistency and orderliness. Also, it can help you map out offers you can include with certain posts.
- In case of a mishap, own up to it and apologise to people involved. This can help build your business’s credibility.
- Be serious about the role of SEO (search engine optimisation) in the content of all your posts.
- Remember your business’s objectives when creating content for your social media accounts. Different businesses will have different objectives, such as driving in-store sales, increasing online sales, launching a new product, building awareness, or promoting a mobile app. Let your goal guide you in determining the kind of posts you share in social media.