Though it began as a means of personal connection, social media has become a ubiquitous marketing tool that a majority of brands and businesses use today. If you’re questioning whether or not social media is worth the investment, the answer is probably, “YES.” Your competitors are already capturing market share, and there’s no time like the present to get competitive.
It doesn’t matter if you run a small local shop or a big national company. Social media is more than just a trend. It is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy. But, social media is not enough to drive business growth alone. While social platforms can help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your leads and sales, you need to start with an always-on mindset and a solid content marketing strategy.
It’s time to meet your customers where they’re already spending their time. Ready to learn more?
Did you know that social media platforms gained 490 million users in 2020? Not only that, but the average user spends about 2 hours and 25 minutes per day scrolling through and engaging with content?
Advertising with social media allows you to advertise your product or service to a larger audience than with traditional print and media advertising. And, unlike many traditional marketing and advertising initiatives, social media marketing has the ability to deliver metrics that matter. Being able to receive and leverage data about your customer profile and behavior means you can put more meaningful dollars behind your marketing strategy.
Armed with real-time data, you can better target the right people at the right place at the right time.
That’s great, but how do you know what platforms to establish a presence? It can be confusing and overwhelming given the number of options available. When deciding what social platform(s) you want to use, consider 1) who your audience is and 2) what assets you have available. For example, if you have high quality video content, you might want to consider YouTube or Instagram, now that Reels and video posts are favored in their algorithm.
If your business is B2B and the content is more industry-focused or related to a job opportunity, using LinkedIn would be your best bet. Still unsure which to use? It’s totally fair to create accounts on all social platforms and test which ones have the highest engagement rate and send the most users to your website. You can always cast a wide net and refine your strategy later.
When marketing your business on social media, it’s important to make sure your brand’s personality and voice come through your content. Introduce your team, share your company’s background, show BTS (behind the scenes) content, portfolio work, and of course anything that showcases your product or service. This will help foster brand authenticity, which is always more attractive to social media users.
It’s also important to generate engagement with your content by soliciting or encouraging likes, comments, and shares. Using a call to action, taking a poll, or hopping on cultural moments and trends can all help create the conversation necessary for social media platform algorithms, which favor accounts that have high engagement rates –– therefore showing your content to more users.
A Search Engine Journal article recently posted about the most popular social media platforms are Facebook and Youtube, with WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok following closely behind.
(note: these statistics are for monthly active users)
Though there are some long established apps listed, it’s important to remember how quickly the social landscape moves. TikTok is quickly climbing in popularity, and proving to be an interesting playground for many brands to explore.
When first diving into social media for marketing your brand, a great first step is to create a list of your top objectives. What are you hoping to get out of social media? Are you trying to increase sales or promote your brand awareness? Prioritizing your objectives will help you stay on track.
Many organizations list their top marketing objectives as building brand awareness, managing brand reputation, building and managing an engaged community, increasing conversions/sales, and gaining customer/market insights.
Still need convincing? Here are some hard numbers from Hubspot to help justify the investment:
If you still have some questions or concerns about the importance of social media, please contact us today!
