Top 9 Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Truthfully, there are so many potential benefits local businesses can gain from using social media marketing that listing all of them would be virtually impossible. Instead this section will focus on just the top nine benefits that any business can gain simply from using social media marketing.
Make it Personal
Even local companies that aren’t major corporations can sometimes lose their personal touch when it comes to reaching out to their customers. And even the independent businesses that make up so many towns and cities can sometimes seem, to customers, as faceless entities that are only out for making a profit. It’s a problem that can be hard for businesses to combat, but social media marketing makes it so much easier.
Social media puts a name and a face to any business. Customers can head over to a Facebook page or Instagram profile and actually see the faces of people that make up the business, and even learn their names. They can become familiar with a YouTube channel that always has a person from the business showing how to use their products or answering some common questions.
When this happens, a business instantly becomes more personal to the consumer. That builds trust and that trust is what’s going to make it more likely that the consumer will head over to your business when they need a product or service, rather than go to a faceless competitor.
Increase communication
Just like local businesses still run the risk of appearing faceless to local consumers, they also run the risk of being unreachable. Local businesses can still become too busy to answer their phone when a customer calls, and those customers can still sometimes call after store hours, meaning no one will be there to take their call. This can be very frustrating to customers when they have a problem that needs to be solved, and no one to help them.
Enter social media, which once again can be a great help. When a business has a social media presence, customers just have to head over to their page and ask a question or leave a comment. Business owners can check the page, even when they’re not actually in the business, and reply to customers quickly and easily. Customers will appreciate it, and businesses will also reap the benefits of it because customers will feel better about using a business that actually cares about them and their concerns.
Collect testimonials
A business can continuously tell their customers how great they are, and that might help to lure some customers into the business. But hearing about how great your business is from someone else is going to have a much more powerful impact, and can turn potential customers into new customers. This is why testimonials are so coveted by businesses. And social media marketing can help businesses get those testimonials.
This is because customers don’t even have to go onto review sites to leave a testimonial or positive feedback. A tweet that says, “My shipment came so fast!” or “Thanks for all the help at the store today!” can be shared or retweeted and used as a testimonial. Not only will your followers see the original post, but you can also use it to reach out to people that may not be following your brand, particularly if you become savvy in the art of using great hashtags or if you tag someone else in the post.
Boost brand awareness
Brand awareness may just seem like another marketing buzz word, but it’s an important of marketing for any business. Boosting brand awareness is simply getting the word out about your business, and making more people aware of the product or service you offer, and the ideology behind your business. Many businesses use other forms of marketing to do this including television ads, print advertising, and radio, but many of these are too expensive and time-consuming for the local business.
But social media marketing is a great fit for all local businesses. By simply having a presence on several social media sites, customers will already be looking for a business, and it will be easy for them to find what they’re searching for. By naturally being placed with others in the same space, brand awareness will soar. And if there aren’t any others in the same space, or there are but they’re not utilizing social media properly, your business can stand out in a crowd. All of this builds loyalty and long-term customers, which is what every business is after.
Become the authority
Every business owner wants their customers to know that they know the most about their product or service. They want them to know that they are the authority, or the experts, in the field, so that it simply doesn’t make sense for customers to go to somewhere else. And social media can help businesses do that.
By posting blog posts, tutorials, and industry news, businesses can easily set themselves apart from the crowd and quite simply, convey to customers that you really know your stuff. And that you even know it better than your customers.
Learn about your customers
While of course you want your businesses to learn about you, you also want to learn about your customers. That is after all, the only way you’re going to be able to market to them more effectively and bring in more profits. And most social media sites will have metrics and analytics that lets you know exactly what customers are coming to your page, when they’re coming, and where they’re coming from, to name just a few of the most trackable metrics.
This is beneficial to businesses because they may see that people in nearby towns are interested in their services, so they’ll know to expand other advertising efforts into that town. Business owners can also see what social media posts are getting the most likes and clicks, so they can continue to publish similar content.
Target your market
Most business owners already know who their target market is. So how can social media help? Because even when businesses know who makes up their target market, it can still be difficult for them to actually target that market. So if a business owner knows that they’re targeting millennials, they may send out a blast promotion not really knowing if that message is getting to their target market.
But social media takes out all the guesswork. On platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, as a business owner you get to simply check off boxes that correlate to your target audience and be guaranteed that the target market will hear the message. It’s really that easy.
Improvement of SEO
The search engines are of huge importance to any business owner. After all, if a customer goes online to search for a business, product, or service, they’re probably going to use a search engine to do it at some point. And when you’re relying on your own website alone, it can be terribly difficult to try and get into those top spots of Google. But when you use social media, and even better, multiple social media platforms, you have a much better chance of getting to those top spots. The search engines love social media sites and will give the profiles on them better ranking. So customers will be able to find you more easily, more quickly, and get into your business to learn more about what you have to offer.
Save your marketing budget
Marketing can cost a lot. Most business owners will agree that marketing takes up a large portion of their budget, and that marketing can greatly eat into their profits. Luckily, social media marketing costs little to nothing. Creating a profile on most social media sites is free, and even platforms such as Instagram will provide a business profile for absolutely free. So you can still start taking advantage of engaging with your customers and learning more about each other without paying a thing. And while actual ads on social media platforms will cost you something, you get to choose exactly what that price is. So you only need to spend what you can comfortably afford, and not a penny more.
