We have all heard social media is the next big thing, but why? Does it have the power to stick around and make a difference or will is fad and fizzle? It’s a complex type of marketing that requires planning, intuition, and flexibility throughout the life of each campaign. It seems like social media marketing appeared out of nowhere and many expect the “easy come, easy go”.
However many sources are citing the growth and boom in this market and the statistics tell a story about longevity and effectiveness. According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers in 2017 agreed that social media is important for their business, up from 86% in 2013. The Social Media Examiner states that 92% of marketers said that social media is important to their businesses.
In fact, the supporting indicators show strong evidence that effective social media marketing works to increase sales, find influencers, and build lasting relationships, in fact it has huge potential – if done correctly. Here are some ways social media marketing can expand your organization:
- Increase Visibility in the Market. By increasing your brand recognition, you will organically increase your brand loyalty and market share. Everything you post and every channel you utilize gives your organization a voice and personality. The more people are hearing from you, the more likely they are to check out your website, your products, and talk to their friends about your offerings. Once you have them as a customer, your voice on social media and the quality of your offerings together will improve band loyalty; customers will prefer your product and will refer you to others.
- More opportunities and a higher conversion rate. Social media is a living breathing beast and every time you speak through your channels, there are people on the other side listening. Everyone has a different driving factor and hot button and the more you post, the more opportunity you have to trigger the interest of potential or repeat customers. The more they hear from you, the more relevant your messages are to their needs, the more likely that interest will turn into sales. If the leads are coming to you interested, the quality of the lead is already better than those of the chased down outbound lead. If the leads are coming to you, then you are doing a great job driving traffic to your organization and your social media is effective.
- Cost effective marketing. According to Hubspot, 95% of marketers who use social media at least 6 hours per week indicated their social media efforts increased exposure for their businesses. From those 6 hours, over 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media. For 6 hours, you are driving inbound, qualified leads that are coming to you. The resulting effect will be a higher and faster percentage of sales and time to close. While it won’t replace your sales efforts, for many budget crunched organizations, this is a way to work smarter and not harder.
- Increased positive customer experiences. Have you ever had someone tell you what to do, or try to talk you into doing something? How did that feel to you, versus doing the same thing, but where you were able to make up your own mind, and do things at your pace, without feeling coerced? This marketing model leaves the customer feeling like they were in control – they made it happen, which they did, in part. Your goal is to send out your messages and entice your audience with the thoughts of what your organization can do for them. They are left with a positive feeling or empowerment and can be made out to be the hero in their organization for finding a solution to a need. Positive breeds positive and people will share those experiences with colleagues and friends.
- Creating partners, not sales. An organic flow happens where a prospect becomes a customer, and the customer becomes a loyal partner. Partners are amazing advocates to have on your organizations behalf. They spread the word about who you are and what you do, they provide valuable feedback to you about our services and offerings, and they ask for enhancements and products that can help advance you to new heights. Partners are golden in the business world.
While social media does take time to develop and cultivate your audience, the benefits are evident. The sooner you start doing social media marketing, the sooner you will see these benefits. Keep in mind that your competitors are already using social media channels to market to your shared audience. They are having all of the successes listed above. Therefore, take a look at social media marketing.
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