9 Ways Your Business Will Benefit From Social Media Marketing

Social media has become an integral part of everyday life. Whether it’s tweeting during your morning coffee break, scrolling Facebook over lunch or ‘pinning’ your dream living room with a glass of wine – everyone from your teenager to your Nan is on social media – and that includes your competitors.

Around 82% of small businesses are already using social media, so if you’re one of the one in five business owners not already taking advantage of this opportunity, now’s a great time to jump in!

If you need further persuasion on the benefits social media can bring to your business, here’s just a few:

1. It increases your reach and brand awareness

First step of the marketing funnel? Awareness. Before you can get any customers, they have to know you exist – and social media can be a great way of doing that. As well as building up followers on your page, your posts can often be seen by the friends or followers of those who interact with your posts, giving you a great opportunity of getting more eyes on your brand.

2. It gives you chance to become a ‘human’ brand

If you’ve heard the saying ‘people buy from people’ – or maybe ‘people buy from people they like!’ – then you’ll be no stranger to the idea that your brand needs a personality to attract customers. Social media – which can often be used with more humour and less formality than you might be used to in your other online marketing – is chance for you to put an approachable, human face to your brand. Whether it’s funny updates or friendly replies to customers, your social channels will help your existing and potential customers feel like they’re interacting with real people rather than a ‘brand’.

3. It helps you offer better customer support

With social media now being such a prevalent part of everyday life, customers often expect brands to be present on social platforms. Maintaining a social media profile means your customers can easily send you questions and queries whilst going about their day-to-day activities – rather than having to dig out your support page or phone number online. The rise of chat support and chatbots can increase the speed at which customer support is offered, providing more efficient customer service and a better experience.

4. It increases your web traffic

Social media gives you ample opportunities to direct visitors to your website – whether it’s through a link on your profile or a blog post you’ve shared. Increased web traffic not only means more people in your marketing funnel – and more chances to impress them – but increased traffic is also thought to be a factor taken into account by search engine ranking algorithms, so could help your site appear higher on Google results.

Looking to rank higher on Google? Check out our blog about using search engine optimisation to get more free traffic!

5. It helps you reach the right customers

Your options aren’t limited to just Facebook and Twitter. There’s a seemingly endless array of social media channels available, all catering for different audiences in terms of age range, language or interests. Some common examples are LinkedIn, which is mostly used for B2B (business to business) marketing and recruitment, or Pinterest, which has a huge use for visual information and projects such as interior design, recipes and exercise routines. Pick your platform(s) carefully and it’ll help you to find more of the right audience.

6. It helps improve your Local SEO

Local SEO is all about getting found more easily by potential customers in your geographical area. Think of things like searching Google for a restaurant and being provided with a Google Maps result suggesting a couple of nearby restaurants. These aren’t picked purely by chance or how close they are, but by a variety of factors. Listing your business address, name and phone number as part of your social media profile, as well as being able to encourage reviews can help you improve your chances of being suggested as a local result.

7. It helps you build relationships

The clue’s in the name – it’s ‘social’ media! Rather than just being a soapbox to tell everyone about how great your business is, social media marketing done well is a vital opportunity to build and nurture new relationships. Whether it’s chatting to potential future customers on Facebook, partnering up with other brands on Twitter or increasing your network on LinkedIn – there are scores of opportunities to get talking to people and get yourself and your brand well known by them.

8. It’s a solid mid-term marketing option

Part of creating a great digital marketing strategy is considering the time required for different tactics to pay off. Paid search engine advertising (often referred to as PPC), such as Google Ads, can start providing you with leads almost immediately, whereas Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can have a lead time of around 6 months before you’ll start seeing success. Social media provides a great middle ground between these, with longer-lasting effects than PPC and a quicker lead-time than SEO.

9. It’s a chance to get feedback

Whether you want to find out what your customers think of a new product, your service or which product ideas they’d like to you work on next – social media can offer you the chance to easily get feedback from your customers – allowing you to take your audience’s opinions into account whilst developing your business.

But before you dive in…

Sporadically posting links to your website on every social channel you can find isn’t going to reap the benefits you’re after. For social media marketing to really work for your business, you need to go in with a plan so that you know what you’re aiming to achieve and how you’re targeting your audience.

HeyYou! Digital can help you with developing a social media and content strategy, choosing the right channels, getting your profiles set up and providing outsourced social media management to cut down on your time commitment: find out more about our social media services!