
Social media has a lot of different uses. You can look at how your old friends are doing, keep up with current news and happenings, discover new hobbies, or keep up with old ones. But what about businesses? There is certainly a lot of space welcome for brands on social media. Even though thousands of brands have thriving social media platforms, it is still criminally underutilized by businesses as a form of free marketing.
Social media is an incredibly powerful tool for companies to use, but there are many people that aren’t sure if the benefits are worth the time and effort required of social media. If you’re one of those companies, not sure why social media is important, here are just a few reasons that you should be utilizing social media.
Free Exposure
Yes, you can purchase social media advertising slots and gain exposure and traffic through those ads. But if you create a normal social media account and post consistently, you can have great success without ever paying a dime. People will naturally find their way to your page based on their interests. Most, if not all, social media platforms splice suggested content with the “followed” content on a user’s feed. This is done for exposure to people they might know or brands they might be interested in based on their other followers. This is a great tool for your business since your audience is most likely following your competition, which will prompt your social media page to their suggested posts/users. You can always do a combination of social media marketing and advertising, but if your budget is tight, social media marketing can be highly successful all on its own.
Reach A Broader Audience
Social media allows you to reach just about everyone you can possibly imagine. According to Statista.com, there were 3.6 billion people on social media in 2020, and that number is only estimated to grow in the coming years. That means that there are at least 3.6 billion potential leads on social media. With at least 7 mainstream options for major social media platforms, you can reach just about any audience by utilizing the right channels. This will allow you to reach more people in your target audience. Not only are you reaching your target audience, but you have a higher chance of reaching a much broader audience, or outliers who are interested in your business. The more you post on social media, the broader your audience will be.
Help You Understand Your Audience
Your audience is a group of complex and unique individuals, and many people want to be treated as such. While the basic demographics and interests of your audience are important for your marketing tactics, your company should want to know more about each of your individual customers and leads, and a great way to get that personal knowledge is through social media. Because of the capability of your social media platforms, you can run polls and ask questions, and receive answers back from your audience to help you better understand their wants, needs, interests, and goals.
Help Your Audience Understand You
Not only does social media help you understand your audience, but it also does the reverse. The more you post about your company and its values, the more your audience will understand you and want to be a customer. Social media is a great tool for developing a relationship with your audience that goes both ways and will help grow your following and business. Gen-Z consumers place heavy importance on having a relationship with the brand where the conversation is two-way, not just the brand talking at them (Forbes). With this massive demographic wanting brands to see them as people, social media is the best way to do so. Being able to interact directly with your audience is the best way to develop a lasting relationship with them.
Have Fun With Your Brand
Social media allows you the chance to get really creative and have fun with your brand. There are many examples of big brands giving their social media team more freedom with their posting, and it allows the teams to take more liberties with the content to make it more fun for themselves and the audience. Allowing your brand to be a fun presence on social media will increase your performance because the younger generations especially will want to buy from a brand that can make a little fun of themselves or roast people. A classic example of a social media team having fun with their brand is Wendy’s tweets roasting people for going to McDonald’s or Burger King. With the rise of TikTok, brands have really started to get creative, with Scrub Daddy and Duolingo going viral because of their continued content. Social media is a great creative outlet for your company that will also generate success.
Social media is an incredible asset for large companies, small businesses, and everything in-between. Utilizing the various platforms is a great way to boost your company’s leads and conversions and reach an audience you never thought of. It’s also a great way to communicate directly with your customers and target audience to better understand them. Contact us to learn more about how our team at Ascent Digital can help your business.