It's hard to imagine what life would be like without social media, but we know that social media marketing is very important to businesses, their customers and consumers. There are many reasons why your business should invest in Social Media Marketing, but here are just eight key points...
1. You Get To Tell Your Story
One of the most important aspects of business is to understand your USP, otherwise known as your unique selling point, because this is what makes your brand stand out from the competition. It gives you a greater reason to tell your story through audio and visual content via your social media channels (such as Instagram and Facebook), which immediatley increases the value of your output. When customers view your social channels, they should be able to identify within the first few seconds whether you provide a service or product, where you are located and what your brand stands for.
2. You Can Grow Your Audience on a Budget
Social media is a clever marketing tool that essentially can be started with little to no budget and enables you to assess growth over time; which allows businesses to allocate marketing budgets in align with their business growth. Understanding how the key social media channels work is essential for establishing an effective social media platform. For example, Instagram is great for all creative visual content, such as introducing your team or launching a new product through imagery or video. However, Facebook enables you to engage more 1-2-1 with consumers as not every post requires imagery. Facebook is great for launching network events and building connections with consumers and businesses within dedicated markets/groups.
There is no requirement to budget for social media marketing, however, if and when your business is ready, paid promotional tools enable you to narrow down audience types and build a stronger, more engaged community across your social pages.
3. Look Active on Your Customer's Social Network
It's guaranteed that one of the first things a consumer will do when they first hear about your brand (and want to support it) is to research it on Instagram or Facebook... most likely Instagram. It's the same concept for when you hear a new artist on the radio or see a new actor on your TV screen, you want to find out more about them and what they're up to. Looking active is such a key part of social media marketing, posting around 3-4 times per week on your main feed. People and times move so quickly that if you haven't posted on your social channels in over 2-3 weeks your audience may think you're inactive and look elsewhere for their products and service.
4. Learn More About Your Competition
Going back to point 3, being active is important to enabling your brand to stand out from the competition, and this is where you can see how other businesses engage with their clients through social media channels. You can identify the tone in how they write their content, what visual content are they using to engage with certain audience types, who are they collaborating with to grow their following. These are all really important aspects to remain competitive in your market and carrying out regular market research of social media channels will ensure the momentum of growth to your own social channels.
5. Target Custom Audiences
Different social media platforms by default attract different demographics. In October 2021, Statista revealed that worldwide 60-64% of Instagram users were aged between 18 and 34, whereas worldwide 33% of Facebook users were aged between 18 and 34. Again, with newer platforms such as TikTok hold an even greater percentage of younger worldwide users aged 10-19 at 32.5%.
It's important to adapt social media marketing and develop content depending on your brand's target market. Not to exclude one type of social media platform, but to encourage greater content development and focus on the types of content on social media platforms which bring greater traction and closeness to your target audience type.
6. Strengthen Relationships with Customers
Communication via direct messaging, commenting on posts and sharing content across platforms develops and builds relationships before, during and after the purchasing process. This communication with your customers is likely to increase the brand awareness of your business as well as strengthen word-of-mouth and more organic social growth.
7. Increase Brand Awareness
The strengthening of customer relationships and your business presence across various social media platforms will inevitably increase brand awareness as more people see your services and products being consumed. Social media marketing is a great aid to encourage users to leave reviews across platforms such as Google and Facebook. This can be encouraged via various social media channels, for example your business could release an Instagram post with an exclusive offer for clients who leave a Facebook review, and automatically you're increasing your brand's awareness to the same consumer via other platforms. With automatic algorithms in place, there is a high chance that friends of these consumers who leave reviews are likely to see the activity of their friend reviewing your social media page, and in the meantime they are likely to check out your business!
8. Use Socials to Sell Your Products and Services
All social media platforms are constantly developing and competing with each other when it comes to tools and useful applications to make every user's workflow more efficient. For example, Instagram have introduced a new shop button for businesses to connect their online store, sending customers directly to the purchasing page. They have also introduced reminders for events, which can be integrated within main feed posts, adding another engaging element to just a standard Instagram post.
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Extra Tips and Tricks for your Social Media Platforms
Keep your social media handles the same. For example, your website and your social media @'s ideally would all be spelt identically.
It is a good idea to check out any competition when creating these handles, are there any businesses with the same or similar handles which could confuse your customers?
Regularly post on Instagram stories with real and engaging content, remember to carry the business's ethos and branding through the day-to-day story content too.
Post across your main feed approximately 3-4 times per week. This always changes with the algorithms, so keep an eye on any changes noticed by professional marketers - who can be found providing free content across Instagram channels.
If you're interested to learn more about social media marketing, we recommend you check out these professional influencers:
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Find WERKS on Socials:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thewerksgroup
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/werksgroup
Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/werksgroup
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/werksgroup
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