Imagine having an audience of 45 million people, each and every one of them within your reach. That figure equates to 67% of the UK’s entire population. It is also the number of people in the UK who use social media, which is now the world’s biggest marketplace.
Establishing a strong social media presence is integral to the success of a modern-day business. Whether your aim is to discover leads, drive sales, or improve your reputation, social media has the power to help you achieve it. If the numbers haven’t yet convinced you to make your mark on social media, allow us to give you a bit more encouragement.
Increase Awareness of Your Brand
Whether you are just starting out your business journey or your plans for growth include expanding into other areas, brand awareness is crucial. Social media marketing is an easy, inexpensive way to increase awareness of your brand on a wider scale.
Being active on social media and building a large following immediately positions you as a powerful, influential company. As your following grows, so does the wider awareness of your company. By posting interesting and valuable content, your audience will also do the work for you be sharing your content and extensively increasing your reach.
Establish Your Brand as a Thought Leader
Becoming the go-to source of information on the topics that you specialise in will give your company’s reputation a huge boost. This style of brand recognition also means that you are the first thought in people’s minds when they require your product or service — the ideal situation for any business.
Establishing your brand as a thought leader is not an overnight process, but by exhibiting your knowledge and expertise and promoting your unique content through social media, you can quickly increase your online reputation and become a renowned expert in your field.
Increase Traffic to Your Website
Owning a large following on social media is powerful, but users can also be converted beyond simply being ‘followers’. Social media posts and ads are great tools for driving traffic to your company’s website and increase their familiarity with your brand.
Sharing the new, unique content on your website’s blog through your social media channels is an effective method of bringing users onto your website. From there, you can navigate them from page to page, giving them the insight they need to make a decision on purchasing from your company.
Use Your Presence to Generate Leads
When leads dry up, businesses suffer. Social media is a low-commitment way for potential customers to show their interest in your service or products. It removes the barrier of having to pick up the phone or visit your company in person.
Instead, leads can contact you on the go or from the comfort of their own home without the fear of being drawn into an uncomfortable conversation if they decide not to proceed with the purchase. By having an approachable online persona, your company increases the likelihood of leads to contacting you themselves.
Manage Your Company’s Reputation
Whether you use social media or not, your customers are already talking about you online. The only difference is if you are there to see it or not. Monitoring social media conversations is an effective form of reputation management. It gives you the power to highlight positive posts, professionally address negative posts, and generally nurture your brand’s online reputation.
Engage with Customers and Audiences
Through social media, your brand can engage directly with your fans and customers. Equally, it gives them the opportunity to communicate with you. This two-way channel of communication allows you to humanise your brand and build relationships with your customers and even a new audience.
The prospect of direct communication scares some companies - especially those who have heard stories of constant customer complaints. While a culture of complaining online is growing, it can be an advantage for businesses who respond and deliver a great service. In 2018, a survey showed more than half of people who contacted a company online were ‘very likely’, and 41% ‘somewhat likely’, to become a repeat customer to a brand that answered their question on social media.
Gauge Sentiment about Your Brand
An insight into the public opinion of your company or brand is incredibly valuable. An overwhelmingly negative sentiment should be addressed, while a generally positive sentiment should be capitalised upon. In the day-to-day running of your business, this can be hard to do. On social media, it’s not.
An array of social media tools can be used to monitor online conversation about your company. The results reflect whether discussions involving your business are positive, neutral, or negative, affording you an active, dynamic guide to the world’s perception.
Advertising That Targets Your Primary Audience
Traditional methods of advertising are designed for mass exposure. While their reach may be significant, it’s impossible to guarantee that they are actually seen by your primary audience. Social media advertising, however, is a different story.
When you run a social media campaign, most platforms allow you to target a precise, specific audience. Factors such as age, location, education, and even personal interests and hobbies can be targeted. For businesses with a comprehensive understanding of their customers, targeted social media advertising offers a direct marketing route to their most saleable audience.
Prove Return on Investment
Any time your business invests in an activity, measuring the results is essential. Even if you have your doubts about using social media, the ease of analysing the performance of your activities should be a source of reassurance.
All platforms offer users social media metrics and analytics to demonstrate the impact of their activity. You can also choose from many other add-ons which track the performance of your account and its posts. So, if you want to justify an emphasis on social media marketing or hone your marketing strategy based on past results, you have the figures close at hand.
Achieve Social Media Success
From the sheer size of the potential audience to the relatively low-cost advertising options, there are so many reasons why social media should be a central part of your company’s marketing strategy. At the heart of your online success is new, unique content and posts designed to engage your audience — that’s where Prize Content comes in.
The Prize Content team is vastly experienced in using social media for business growth and development. We write compelling, engaging content for your company, sharing it through social media to improve your online reputation. Our team have also created various social media advertising campaigns to help businesses generate leads and exceed their sales targets.
If you want to make social media a successful marketing channel for your company but aren’t sure where to start, we’d love to help. Drop us a line at hello@prizecontent.com or use the friendly PrizeBot at the bottom-right side of this window.
