The Advantages of Leveraging Social Media for Business

By Sam Levin

Can social media bring new opportunities to your business? The answer is a resounding, yes!

Social media epitomizes what the web is about, collaborating and sharing content, ideas, and information. It’s a very significant tool in our everyday lives and businesses, with the innate ability to reach out to the desired audience. 

Digital marketing platforms allow businesses to leverage social media to drive awareness to a desired or niche audience, ultimately increase ROI and generate leads, but is it as simple as that?

It’s hard to justify your social media efforts especially if there aren’t any leads being garnered from it. Executive leadership can get extremely frustrated and refuse to increase spending on anything at all, it can also be argued that this lack of results is the very reason why you do need to hire a social media marketing agency to get you results.

Like the widely credited saying by Albert Einstein “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

Here are some valuable tips to help you leverage your Social Media efforts: 

Brand Awareness and attracting customers. 

Considering that close to half the world ‘s population is currently using social media; half the work is already done. You just have to give your business/brand a voice that attracts your desired audience and providing real value to that audience. Statistics have shown that people tend to follow what other people have recommended, with that being said it can positively or negatively affect your brand.

• Be real, people want to know that they can trust your brand and that the brand is keeping to its promises.
• Change it up across the different platforms but try to keep your brand consistent by utilising the same company logos and colours. 
• When it comes to brand awareness, make it visual. Graphics and images are more appealing than text and can generate a higher level of engagement. 
• Be bold, show off how well your product is liked, introduce your followers to the employees, and to the people that make your business. Creating a real-life connection to your product is one of the key benefits of social media for business.
• Keep your voice and tone casual, this encourages more of a human-like approach which will encourage more people to interact and increase your following. 
• Try not to stick to only one platform, people are drawn to certain types of platforms for various reasons. 
• Be consistent, stay on top of it. Researchers have come to see that many social media users log into their accounts at least once a day, and many are checking their accounts multiple times a day. So, take advantage of connecting to your audience regularly. 
  
  

How much time do individuals spend on social media? 

The latest 2019 Social Media User Trends Report conducted by GlobalWebIndex has shown that globally, digital consumers are currently spending two hours and twenty-three minutes daily on social networks and electronic communication.

According to GlobalWebIndex “98% of consumers have used a social media network within the past month. Being a web user means being a social media user.”

Social Networking and your business

You could be missing out if you are not taking advantage of Social Networking for your business.

Let’s look at how you could generate potential customers via social networking?  

Social Media can be leveraged specifically for generating leads and ROI for your small business and social networks. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn are offering opportunities to gather leads through these platforms.

The most beneficial aspect of generating a lead by utilising social media is based on the idea that you can gain potential leads through advanced targeting and improve the quality of your leads.

How many people respond to cold calling, I know I don’t, but remember many are inclined to start a dialogue on social media?

Thus, Social networking will provide your sales team with a steady flow of potential new clients if done correctly.

Drive Traffic to Your Website

Social media is great for driving traffic to your business’s website. Social media platforms allow you to share and post content with a link to your website, enabling potential customers with direct access to your website and at the same time giving your company the desired exposure.  

• This is a great opportunity for your followers to become aware of all your products or services your business offers.
• Get chatting by taking part in social conversations on LinkedIn and Twitter, this is a great way to create more exposure from new potential clients and you are generating so much more exposure to your website.
  
  

Evaluating your Performance

So now, how do you establish exactly how your brand has performed via social media marketing?

Running marketing campaigns can often leave you in the dark when it comes to assessing your performance. With Social Media Marketing you can assess your performance by simply running a marketing campaign and keeping track of your ongoing performance, allowing you to tweak your strategy and monitor the number of visits to your posts.

 

About the Author: 

Samantha Levin, Multitasking mom, Online English Teacher, and Freelance Copywriter that gets joy in paying knowledge forward and at the same time gaining so much more back.

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