Why Using Social Media is Important for Your Business

Each and every business has different objectives and each uses different approaches to market themselves. Use of posters, flyers, billboards, television advertisements and newspaper adverts has been the way to create awareness and market products for many years. However, with the birth of the internet, marketing has seen drastic growth and many companies have now gone online to create more awareness and drive more sales to grow their business.
The introduction of social media opened new marketing opportunities for many businesses who found the earlier methods complicated and too costly. Many businesses have found success through use of social media. But why? According to Digital in 2017 Global Overview report, there are 3.77 billion global internet users and out of this 2.80 billion are social media users. With these numbers, you can clearly imagine the number of people who can be reached if you use social media as a method of marketing to drive your sales.

1. It will help create awareness for your Business.

Did you know that 78% of small businesses have reported having found new customers while using social media? The power of social media is impressive. People are using social media to find local businesses selling certain products or services and therefore using social media will help people realize that your business exists and you are likely to get new customers contacting you. Moreover, it is important to keep your social media platforms active by continually engaging with customers and posting updates. It has been found out that 63% of customers who search for businesses on social media are likely to use the active ones as they seem more focused. The most successful businesses hire a social media agency to help keep their brand active and have their customers engaged.

2. It will help drive traffic to your website

It is very likely that your business has a website that explains in details your services and products. For every social platform you create, linking it to your website will help drive traffic to your website. Once a customer finds your services on social media and they are interested, they will have to click on your website link to find more about your products, make a purchase online or create an appointment. So, depending on the nature of business you can create a call for action button

on your social media platforms that links to your website to enable customers use your services easily.

3. It will help Increase your search engine rankings

Getting your business ranked high on search engines will definitely bring you more customers and value for your business. When customers search for certain keywords they are likely to use the results on the first page of the search engine. For example, let’s say your business is a hotel in Sauk Centre and a potential customer searches “hotels in Sauk Centre”, if your business is highly ranked it will likely appear on the first page of Google search results (which customers trust) and chances are they will reserve a room at your hotel. Search engines such as Google take into consideration the social media presence of a business into how they will rank on the search results. So, the idea here is to get more customers sharing your business online as it will help you rank higher. This will work if you continually market your business on social media and create interactive posts that will keep your customers engaged.

4. Improve your customer service

Customers nowadays use social media platforms to get customer service assistance rather than physically presenting themselves at a customer desk. This is a very effective method and will likely get you positive reviews especially if you answer your customers’ concerns on time and well. Positive reviews will help you attract new customers. It is also a good way to notify your customers of new updates and offers. If your business is not on social media then you are missing a very crucial opportunity to make your business successful.

5. Social media is cost-effective

Whenever you decide to market products through paid advertising, you will realize that social media is the cheapest method compared to other marketing methods. This way, if you are a small startup, you are able to meet the cost and you are sure your advertisement will reach quite a high number of potential customers.

It is very clear that social media is an opportunity to make your business successful and if you are yet to bring your business online, with a 25% projected growth in social media over the next 5 years, it is the high time you create social media platforms and begin reaching out to your loyal and potential customers before your competitors do first!