How can social media help a business?
How can social media help a business? We are often asked this question and when social media first appeared years ago, many just saw it as a way to catch up with old school friends and spy on their holiday snaps. However it’s become much more than that, especially for businesses who are looking to get their message out there; making it no longer optional for companies not be on social media.
However once you have set up your social media profiles, what can the networks actually do for your business? We’ve got it all the summed up in 7 points below…
1) Increase Brand Awareness
At tgi Media, when we first start to discuss what social media can do for a businesses with our clients, we always stress how much it can improve their brand awareness; mainly due to their customers being able to instantly find and connect with their company. And by constantly connecting with customers online, there is a high chance that you will develop a relationship and therefore increase brand loyalty.
2) See Realtime Results
With other forms of marketing; such as leaflets and newspaper advertising, it can be difficult to gauge just exactly how many people you have reached. However with social media marketing, you can instantly see how many users your status has reached by simply looking at the analytics built into the dashboards of each social media platform.
3) Successfully Create Geotargeting Content
Following on from the last point, you can measure your results even more by doing sponsored posts on social media. Paid advertising on social media is a quick and cost effective way to pay for marketing and you can even target it to a specific area. To ensure that you reach your intended audience, you can select anything from location to job title to really guarantee you are reaching the right people.
4) Increase Website Traffic & Search Engine Rankings
Social media is a very easy way to drive customers to your website, especially if you are inviting them to ‘find out more’ about your products. By having more people click on your website, this can also help to improve your ‘search engine rankings’ as Google will recognise your website as being a ‘reputable site.’
5) Instantly Showcase Content
Before social media, marketeers had issues with circulating content to customers as quickly as possible in the shortest space of time. However because of the invention of social media, you can instantly connect with an audience, at a touch of a button. Making it convenient if you ever need to let them instantly know about changes to your product, service or event.
6) Keep An Eye On Competitors
As you are on social media, it makes it easier to keep track on what your competitors are doing if you follow their updates online. For instance, did you know on Facebook pages, you could set up a ‘watch list’ where you can monitor your competitors’ Facebook page. Metrics such as page ‘likes’, the number of updates posted by page admins and their top performing posts are just some of the things you can keep track of.
7) Cost-Effective Marketing
Social media is quite possible the most cost-effective form of marketing, especially as the majority of platforms allow you to sign-up and post content for free. And even if you decide to use the paid for option on social media, compared to other traditional forms of marketing, it is highly likely it will give you a much better cost-effective return.
Think social media could help to boost your business? Get in touch with the team on: 01325 468 481 or by emailing: info@tgimedia.co.uk to discuss your requirements.
Written by Account Manager, Grace Wakes