Are there any benefits for going on social media? Considering that there are over 3.2 active monthly users of different social platforms around the world, you would be missing out on the next big business avenue! You could still be skeptical about social media’s benefit for your brand. Many people use social media for personal reasons. Would they be interested in your brand?
The interest in brands on social media is higher than ever. Over 95% of adults aged between 18 and 40 follow at least one brand. On instagram alone, over 80% of users follow a business page. A study found that more people follow brands and businesses on social Medias than celebrities, which suggests that there is enough interest online to help you achieve your business goals and create awareness for your brand.
If you are not active on social media, you could be missing out on an inexpensive, convenient and quick way to market your brand to just under half of the global population. Here’s how social media can help you reach out to, connect and engage with potential clients and help you grow your business.
You can track return on investment
Measuring ROI can be challenging for marketing campaigns. On traditional media, it will be challenging to know the full impact of an advertising campaign, since the only metric you can observe is viewers and listener numbers. You may not know how potential clients reacted to the advertising campaign, and whether it influenced any sales.
On social media, you can measure the full impact of your marketing campaigns through different tracking and analytic tools. You can observe and collect information every aspect of your campaign from the user engagement rates to the purchases. Tools such as HootSuite Impact and Google Analytics help you track the traffic generated from social media activity, email sign ups and conversions, among other aspects of your campaign
You can remarket
Over 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned by the buyer. This is a significant amount of potential sales lost. The user has already researched the product and your brand, but is unable to make the purchase. Users gave reasons such as high shipping costs, long shipping times and failed discount codes as playing a key role in their decision to cancel an online purchase.
You can take advantage of these types of potential customers through a number of tracking and paid advertising tools. You can market to potential customers through tools such as Facebook Pixel to reach customers who have shown an interest in the same product in the past. This social media strategy has proven very successful for commerce sites, such as Crafty, who saw a4.3 x ROI and a 30% rise in Facebook driven earnings.
Inexpensive targeted advertising
Social media’s biggest draw for businesses is the ability to reach their target markets. Unlike traditional media avenues, which only offer a scatter gun advertising approach, social media allows you to target specific demographics, helping to market your brand better. You can do this through social ads, which offer powerful targeting options for brands looking to find a specific audience. It can provide a competitive edge for your brand, as well as reduce your marketing expenses. Ads also offer specific targeting options, and you can choose specific location, language or online activity to find your next customer base.
The shift to modern means of marketing over traditional avenues is clear. In 2018, marketers spent twice as much as they did on newspaper advertising on Facebook ads alone. The reach of these ads,to users with both mobile and computer interfaces, makes marketing on social media even more appealing.
Monitoring the competition
You can use social media to keep in touch with your clients and competition. Knowing what people are saying about your competitors will help you take advantage of any slips in their social media activity. You can also use it to capitalize on their brands’ inequities, such as finding pain points in their products through analysis of their mentions and offering better solutions to win new customers.
Monitoring the competition increases your awareness of new products and promotions, as well as any new reports and data, which will help you to react accordingly. You can also use social media to keep in touch with the latest news and trends in your industry. Social listening will help you keep an ear on the ground, and ensure that you are informed about any needs and changes that might affect your business.
You can monitor and manage your brand’s reputation
Your online `reputation, which may also be defined as social media sentiment, is the positive or negative mood generated in user engagement. Your reputation will affect your brand. While having a high engagement rate with lots of mentions can be a good thing for your business exposure, this might be potentially harmful if the comments are negative. By keeping in touch with the sentiment around your brand, you can make sure that you address any problems quickly and improve the chances of a more positively viewed brand.
By monitoring your user engagements and sentiments, you will be able to learn more about your customers. All the major social media networks will allow you to track their sentiment of your brand, which can be helpful in understanding their preferences. You can use this information to better develop products to their needs, as well as know how to reach your desired audiences.
Final word
There are a number of mistakes that business owners make on social media that affect their brand’s performance. It is important to appear authentic and trustworthy to your customers, which you can do by having your contact and location information across your social media pages.
It can be challenging for relatively new brands to be successful on certain social media platforms. For instance, users on Instagram will tend to prefer more popular content. Paid advertising options, such as auto Instagram likes could help your brand reach your desired target audiences better on these platforms. These options are inexpensive, and could be ideal for creating the right interest in your brand.
