There are plenty of benefits to incorporating social media marketing into your overall marketing strategy. Most businesses need to have a public facing account on the most popular platforms, but using social media well could have a long lasting effect on your business.
To really get the best result from social media marketing, hire a social media specialist. These are professionals who have dedicated their working lives to studying and understanding social media and all its funny quirks and subtleties.
Direct contact
Accounts on social media channels are a way for your customer base to interact directly with your brand. They provide a way to engage existing and potential customers, all while you control the voice and image that your company is projecting.
A social media marketer will have the knowledge to be able to analyse data and reports and adjust the way your company uses social media to best represent your interests. If your customers are most likely to engage on Facebook, that is where you need to be posting; if they are more likely to use Instagram, and trust influencers, then that becomes the priority.
Through social media, your customers get to know you. They can see how you react to news within your industry, how you interact with your competitors, and most importantly, how you engage with other customers.
Marketing on social media means that you are always available to deal with queries, comments and complaints. There must be a process in place to direct these through the right channels. There is also an element of performance, as anything that is levelled at your business on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms, is public. It can be seen not just by you and your team, but by everyone who follows either your brand’s social media accounts or the customer in question.
This is a great opportunity for your social media marketer to manage these interactions and make sure that your company is continually presented in the best light possible. Social media accounts are a great way to get customers onside, which can build brand authority and customer loyalty in the long run.
Generate leads
Having a fantastic social media presence will help generate leads, and then convert these leads into sales.
A clean, clear landing page on each of your social media platforms will help to build a coherent image. A social media marketer will be able to apply your logo and brand colours, as well as invoke your culture and ethos, across each of the separate accounts your company holds on each platform.
This in turn will help followers feel confident in your brand, and will help them easily navigate to your webshop or contact pages – wherever they need to go to make that purchase.
Good social media may also lead to other engagement, such as signing up for your newsletter, reading your blog, or creating content of their own. User generated content is a valuable asset: if your potential customers can see that you have a large base of people who use and love your product enough to shout about it on their own social media accounts, they will feel that they can trust your company.
Your social media manager will keep track of just how effective this engagement is, and how often it results in a new sale. These are stats that can be used going forward to inform how you use social media, but also if there is any feedback on your product or service that could even improve what you offer.
It is cost effective
Social media marketing is the only form of marketing that can start off as free, or almost free. An account on each of these social media channels is free to set up, and if you already have branding and logos that fit, you can be set up in a very short time.
As your company grows and starts to find success on social media, it will probably be a good idea to start experimenting. This can involve paid adverts on these channels, or it may also mean using Instagram influencers, or promotions with partner brands. You could also find value in using social media marketing management tools, such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social.
The big benefit of marketing on social media is that your manager can see results in real time. If something isn’t quite working, they can tweak it; if something is a runaway success – perhaps a post goes viral – they can manage the response, convert those reactions into leads and potentially sales, and can also keep track of just what went so right so that they can do it again.
Conclusion
Social media is a must in the 21st century. Brands must have public faces, and they must be managed effectively to engage successfully with your customer base.
A great social media campaign can engage customers, get people talking, generate leads and track reactions in real time. As a cost effective solution, having a social media marketer on your team is a smart way to foster a real connection between your company and your customers.
