Social Media Marketing: Top 10 Benefits
A couple of years ago, the term social media marketing was thrown around businesses as the next big thing. Back then, businesses saw social media as an unnecessary endeavor that wasted precious hours of the workday. But now, at the beginning of 2019, social media is becoming a huge part of the modern business plan.
Small businesses and well-established brands are reaping the benefits of social media. With over 75% of Americans on social media in 2018, it is simply foolish to not include it in your marketing plans. If you talk to any of the world’s leading brands’ marketing teams, they will tell you that social media marketing has increasing benefits each and every year. In fact, social media budgets are expected to double in the next five years.
Still, with all the knowledge about social media marketing, businesses across the United States and the world still do not see the power of utilizing social media. Here are the top 10 benefits of social media marketing for your business, whether big or small, in 2019.
1) Increase Brand Exposure
As a business, getting more people to know about your brand is important, right? Social media is one of the easiest ways to reach your audience effectively and get other people to see your brand simply while browsing in their own personal time. When somebody on Facebook shares your post, image, or video, this creates additional exposure for your brand. Let’s say you use social media to promote a coupon for your store. When somebody is excited about the sale, they will often share your post with their friends. Not only do you get more people seeing your sale, but you can also gain additional followers. Social media creates a trickle-down effect that is very beneficial to businesses.
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 1, Increase Brand Awareness. The example seen above has a huge reach on Facebook which means more brand exposure.
2) Build Customer Loyalty
Social media creates opportunities that businesses didn’t have in the past. With your profiles, you can easily interact and engage with your customers. When you interact with your customers, you are creating a positive relationship with them. When this relationship gets built online, the customer is more likely to end up purchasing your business’s products or services. Your loyal customers will like, share, retweet, or comment on the content you create.
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 2 Increase Social Media Brand Loyalty. Moon Pie giving a critic some feedback on Twitter.
3) Generate Leads
A great way to grow your leads is through utilizing social media. Whether your business wants to grow an email list to showcase your new products or you’re a B2B business looking for new clients, social media is a great tool to do so. There are many techniques for generating leads through social media, including running contests or using paid advertising, In fact, 44% of B2B marketers have gained leads through using LinkedIn.
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 3 Generate Leads. Lucktastic running a Facebook contest that generates leads by giving $200 away.
4) Gain Insights About Your Customers
One of the most beautiful aspects of utilizing social media marketing in your marketing plan is that you get to learn more about your customers.
The main social networks include analytics about your followers. With these insights, you can learn more about your customers’ buying habits, interests, and geographical location, which are very helpful in identifying what content to send out to your audience. In particular, you can even define your groups into different segments so you know where to put forth more effort into your marketing plans. Social media allows you to gain more detailed information about your followers than ever before.
Social Media Benefit Number 4 Learn About Your Audience. You can easily find out on Facebook about your follower’s ages and locations.
5) Improve Sales
Through social media, you can easily promote your new products and services to your audiences. With your profiles, your customers can easily shop right through whatever social media platform they are on. Currently, Facebook and Instagram allow businesses to tag their products in photos, and a follower can easily purchase that item without ever leaving the platform. Another option is to create content around your sales. If you are running a sale, your business can promote the sale through paid advertisements, and at the same time, share the sale with your normal followers.
If you really want to grow your business, we suggest utilizing influencers on social media. Influencer marketing is one of the fastest-growing and most successful ways to sell on social platforms.
Influencer marketing has been taking the social media world by storm. Brands both big and small are paying social media influencers like Dude Perfect to promote their products in a fun and social way. These influencers post on their normal platforms but mention a brand or service that helped them get their own content out there. People who follow these influencers are likely to be persuaded into purchasing that product because they saw their favorite Youtuber or Twitch streamer using that product.
If you properly use your social media platforms to their max, you will see significant increases in your sales.
Social Media Benefit Number 5 Increase Sales. An example by Volvo of using influencer marketing to increase sales through Instagram.
6) Get Better Search Engine Results
Did you know your social media profiles can actually help you show up higher on search engines such as Google and Bing? This is done by a process known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. When you are active on your social media profiles, there is evidence that shows you will show up higher on these search engines. This means when someone uses a keyword to search for something, the top results most likely have consistent, and active social media profiles. This is great for increasing your organic traffic to your website!
Social Media Benefits Tip 6 Improve Search Engine Results. Here’s a great chart explaining this in a little more detail by Lyfe Marketing.
7) Learn About Your Competition
One of the great benefits of using social media in your business is that you can see exactly what your competition is doing.
If you notice your competitors are doing a much better job at engaging their customers, you can see how they are doing it. Since there is so much data out there in the world of marketing now, you can do a social media audit of your competition all for free. Your business can do a deep dive into the competitors and find out what exactly is working for them. Whether it is a consistent posting schedule or sharing tips about the industry, you can then try some of their techniques out on your own page.
Social Media Competitive Analysis Sprout Social
The template created by Sprout Social to analyze your competition.
8) Using Customer Service
More and more businesses are utilizing their social media accounts to do their customer service. Companies like Nike use their Twitter account to handle any customer complaints, compliments, or issues. Connecting with your customer using social media creates a relationship with them. This then builds off of point number 1 we made about building brand loyalty. This is an indirect benefit of using social media for your digital marketing.
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 8 Customer Service. An example of Nike using Twitter for customer service.
9) Lower Advertising Costs
Most of the major social media platforms have the option for businesses to run advertisements through them. In fact, Facebook is the most popular option for marketers to use paid advertisements. To put this perspective into common terms in advertising, the CPM (cost per thousand) on Facebook is $7.90 and traditional TV marketing can cost up to $34.57. Social media marketing has allowed companies to save thousands and still be as effective, if not more effective, than traditional marketing. Not to mention, you do not have to pay to get your message printed!
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 9. A traditional Facebook advertisement.
10) Increase Your Website Traffic
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of using social media as a marketing tool is sending people to your website. Whether your a B2C or a B2B, your website is one of the most important tools you have in the digital marketing world. When you share a link or update from your company to your page, you are ultimately hoping for your customer to click on the link and go to your website for a particular action. In 2015, social media drove 31.2% of all traffic to websites around the globe.
Social Media Marketing Benefit Number 10. A quick glimpse into Google Analytics.
Conclusion
If you are debating or arguing with your boss about putting social media marketing into your marketing plan, the benefits outweigh the cons as outlined above. If you want to reach your audience in an effective manner, social media is the way to go.
These are only ten of the benefits of using social media for your business, but there are some that are unique just to your accounts. Have you seen any benefits that aren’t listed? We would LOVE to hear what social media has done for you.