Social media is here to stay. It’s become a consistent part of all our lives, to the point where some people spend the majority of their time on the platforms.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, the list goes on and on and on. The daily interactions between family members, friends, and new acquaintances, is countless in potential. But how do you, as a business, utilize social media?
Let’s make one thing clear, from the get go. Social media is not something to ponder anymore. It’s a requirement for your marketing. If you don’t have any social media accounts that represent your business in this modern age, you’re working at a disadvantage.
Your competition may use it. Your idols will be using it. It’s time to bring yourself up to speed, and take advantage of the potential of social media. But how can it help you? Let’s explore.
Telling Your Story
The story of your business is constantly changing. Every day, a new development happens, progress gets made, and your operations succeed at something. So, why not tell that to your customer or client base?
I’m not saying that you should publish internal reports, or that your operations manager beat his score on Tetris, but perhaps you’ve been sponsoring a charitable initiative, and it’s born some fruit? You’ve released a new product, and it’s helped some customers? Things like that.
The story doesn’t stop evolving at social media, either. Just having social media can evolve your story as well. Interactions with other companies, customers, recommendations by high-value people, they can all have an effect on what you can publish for your customer and client base.
Just be careful with it. Choosing what to publish can provide a skewed image of your business. Don’t underestimate the public, they can find things you thought were hidden, and bring it to light. As long as you operate in a transparent and morally just way, nine times out of ten, you’ll profit more than you’ll ever lose.
Brand Loyalty
Are you a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi fan? If you selected either, you’re loyal to a brand. If you selected neither, you’re loyal to something else. It may seem as if you don’t have control, but it’s merely preference out of a selection. It’s not a bad thing, and you can stop at any time.
To bring that point home in terms of social media, interacting with your customer and clients is never a bad thing. Depending on the style you present yourself, you can develop an image of your business. Plus, talking to customers and clients casually, makes it not all about business, which can be a refreshing take.
Knowing that you perform outreach can make others see you as easily approachable. Having this reputation, opens up a massive range of opportunities for business, community projects, and even feedback.
You can even use social media as a support system, an easier way for customers to approach you. Being able to easily access you, and be helped quicker, will make your customers happier. Most social media accommodate for faster response times, with clean UI’s and notifications, so you’ll never be left unaware.
Increase Your Brand Awareness
Just by simply being active on social media, you can reignite the memories of your customer and client base. Attention spans are finite in the age of fast information, so a quick appearance on people’s social media feed, has the chance of seeing if there are any problems they’re having where your product or service, can solve their problems.
It’s why you still see ads on TV that don’t present any new information, just a mention of the name and logo. It’s not to increase sales, it’s to remind you that yes, this product does exist, and we sell this.
Social media is also great for announcing new products, in a cheap and effective way. Brand awareness is, of course, letting people know what your brand is about, and that also goes for anything new you bring to the table.
If people are following you, one of the main reasons might be for this alone. If you’ve been analyzing reports from your target audience for new features or functions, you can announce them on the page, knowing that you’re fulfilling the needs of your social media audience. A brand that listened to me and created a solution? Sign me up.
Market Research
As mentioned earlier, social media is great for customer feedback, as the line for communication is extremely slim. It’s as simple as landing on your social media page, or account, and clicking a button. They can message you about problems, or even mention how great things are. Both are a plus in research & development.
You can also use surveys, and other similar methods, by asking people to fill them out. By making sure the wording on the survey targets a specific need, you can get extremely precise feedback from those who feel strongly about it. It’s a valuable method to use if you require data that hits the nail on the head, straight away, rather than general methods like emailing your entire customer or client base.
Another useful feature is that many social media platforms hold a lot of data about their users. Creepy, I know, but for you, it’s a way to know who’s following you, all the way down to demographics, places of origin, and if they like pizza or not. It’s that precise.
Your product will have a target audience, and through these data tools, you can make sure you’re hitting the correct one. And if you’re not, it can provide a revelation to pivot on your strongest demographic. There’s no wrong way to use this kind of data!
Increased Revenue Opportunities
Social media’s not just for sitting back and throwing a few posts at. You can also take a direct approach with it. It’s not just you in this massive online platform, there are other people of value, businesses, communities, and groups, that can lead to unraveling multiple opportunities. This can be sales-based, for rapport, or research. It depends on the platform.
You can contact others directly, much like your audience can do with you. Much like cold emailing, it can be hit or miss, but the people operating the social media accounts will more than likely flag interesting pitches as worth passing onto a superior for inspection. Even in groups ran by people, if the group is related to your product, you’ve got a targeted audience to pitch too, with a higher chance of inquiries than a general sweep.
Another method ties in with storytelling and brand awareness. You can announce mergers, business purchases, and collaborations to your audience, giving views and leads to the other business, as well as theirs to you.
Plus, it can be an informal affair. Simple interaction with other businesses’ social media profiles can increase your brand awareness with their own social media following. Doing this may lead to more opportunities for business, simply by people knowing you exist. Great, huh?
Wrap it Up!
Social media is incredibly important in this modern age, and has been a staple of marketing for years now. It’s accessible to all skill levels, and there are multiple strategies you can use to take advantage of these platforms.
It’s incredible for marketing, honestly. If you’ve not ventured forward into the social media world, now is the perfect time. Luckily, if this seems a bit too much for you, there are plenty of marketing agencies that specialize in social media marketing. It’s up to you.
Do you put in the time, or leave it to the experts? Time will tell on how it will pay off for you!