Social media is growing. 90% of all marketers say social media marketing has increased their business exposure. Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users. YouTube still is the second largest search engine in the world with over 3 billion searches a month. Instagram is quickly gaining in popularity, going from 500 million to 1 billion active users within the last year.
Your potential business reach is phenomenal online, social media is a marketing tool that is invaluable to your business. It is a powerful tool for all businesses if it is used correctly! Consumers buying habits have changed over the years, more and more people are making purchasing decisions based on what they see or read online. Social media is an extension of your brand’s personality.
We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman
The benefits of social media for business are endless. They include:
- Brand development – social media is one of the most effective ways of interacting with your customers personally. It helps shape your brands’ personality.
- Branding is what consumers relate to if you already have an established brand, social media will be the tool that will give your voice a brand online.
- Being active online and sharing valuable content is what your business needs to have a voice.
- Revenue – building your community online will inevitably help develop your brand online, this will attract more customers, which will generate more revenue for your business. You can use social media to advertise your product or service using PPC.
- Search engine optimisation – your posts will encourage people to link back to your website which will help with search ranking and boost your SEO. It can become a stable source of traffic if it is done correctly.
- Understand your audience – you have to get to know your target audience in order to grow your business successfully. Social media is key to customer service.
- New customers – with more online exposure across social media platforms you’ll attract new customers. You can also have competitions or giveaways to attract more customers.
- Word of mouth – social media is comparable to word of mouth advertising. People make recommendations online and others listen to them.
It’s free to use – however it can be time-consuming, as the campaigns have to be managed, and monitored. To save yourself time, you can let us manage your social media. - Putting your customers first – a great way to engage in a two-way conversation, showing transparency with customers builds trust, more followers will share your brand.
We’ve seen the benefits of social media above. Now it’s time to have a look at the stats. 45% of marketers said that managing social media profiles can take over 10 hours a week – well we did mention it is time-consuming!
- 93% of marketers use Facebook advertising regularly, which translates to about 3 million businesses that use Facebook for marketing.
- 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile each day.
Over 80% of accounts on Instagram follow a business. - There are over 25 million business profiles on Instagram.
- 60% of internet users with an annual income of $100,000 or more use Instagram.
- Twitter has about 336 million monthly active users.
- Total engagements with ads on Twitter have increased by 69% since last year.
- LinkedIn (93%) is the most valuable social platform for B2B companies.
- Twitter (83%) is a valuable social platform for B2B companies.
- Written articles (27%), videos (26%), and images (24%) are the three most engaging types of content on social media.
It depends on who the business is targeting. If it is B2B then LinkedIn and Twitter are the most effective social platforms to use. LinkedIn is a professional platform, engagement is easier as business professionals and companies share their profiles. LinkedIn is the place to network online for professionals.
If you are a B2C business, then Facebook and Instagram are the social media platforms that are valuable to you. You can directly influence your consumers on these platforms. As many of the customers purchasing decisions are made using these platforms.
Businesses often have a budget to pay for targeted ads which can be retargeted. As social media platforms offer highly targeted ads, which can be customised around your customers’ needs. Facebook ads, for example, can target customers by factors like gender, age, location, education, user behaviour. One of the advantages of social media for businesses is that it is a level playing field regardless of the size or nature of your business.
In a nutshell, there are numerous benefits of social media for businesses, if it is managed correctly, the statistics above highlight your potential online. Social media takes time to manage. We offer social media management services for your business, we have the expertise needed to run successful campaigns across all social media platforms.
Remember your competition is already social!
