“If you don’t own your social media space, someone else does”
This was once told to me at a conference, and now more than ever, it rings true.
Social Media is the dominant media outlet of this century and yet, it’s incredibly accessible and free to access for your business. It gives everyone a platform to speak, so if you’re not speaking for your business, who is? And are they saying something nice?
Marketing your business in this space can be daunting at first, even if you’re not the one doing it, so let’s go over a few points on the importance of social media marketing for your business.
- Increased Brand Recognition: Your brand is everything and getting it out there is crucial to the success of your business. Social media networks have become the new channels for your company’s voice to be heard. This has a two-fold effect, on one hand, it makes your brand more recognisable to existing customers and the other, helps you access new ones. For example, a new customer might come across your company on their newsfeed, or an existing customer might be more comfortable with your business after seeing it on multiple networks.
- Improved brand loyalty: According to Ambassador 1 71% of consumers who have good social media service with a brand, are likely to recommend it to others. And Convince&Convert 2 found that 53% of people who follow brands on social media are more loyal to those brands. In other words, if you’re properly servicing your customers on Social Media and you can get them to become a subscriber, you’ve got a loyal fan that will spread the word about your business for you.
- More Opportunities to Convert: When you broadcast on social media, you’re not only talking to your existing customers, but, through their network of friends, you’ve also got the opportunity to talk to new customers, recent customers and old customers. Everything you post is an opportunity for someone to interact. That interaction could lead to them visiting your site or location which could eventually lead to a conversion. This doesn’t mean that every interaction will be successful, but every positive interaction increases your chances.
- Higher conversion rates: Social media marketing results in higher conversion rates. There are many reasons for this, including the sheer volume of people and low overhead costs that allow you to put more time into your leads; but the one I’d like to focus on is its humanization element. If your posts come with a name attached or a picture, it feels like it comes from a person, not a company. Companies can masquerade as people, become friends with a customer and eventually, lead to a sale. Hubspot 3 found that by spending as little as six hours per week, 66% of marketers saw lead generation benefits with social media.
That’s just a small insight into the wide and ever-expanding world of social media marketing. It is the most exciting place for companies to explore right now. If you’d like to learn more and move your business or career forward in this space, MCIE is starting a diploma in Social Media Marketing, more of the details can be found here.
It’s the perfect time to own your space before someone else does.
