Social Media is one of the most diverse channels when it comes to tools to grow your business. There’s so much activity it can be hard knowing where to start. If you aren’t convinced Social Media is the right tool for your business, then take a few minutes to read this blog. We’re going to highlight 5 of the most important reasons you should be using Social Media and how you can utilise them in your marketing plan.
Reason 1: It’s Always Growing
Social media is a marketing channel that’s ever evolving. Every year the number of active users on platforms increases. In fact, as of Q2 2023, Facebook had 2.6 billion active users. With such a large number of people using just one social media platform, it's easy to understand why it would be unwise to not make use of it.
There are now 65 million local business pages on Facebook all hoping to increase their brand awareness by targeting this ever growing audience. But how can you differentiate your brand from others?
One of the main things that makes up your social media is your content. 61% of marketers prioritise posts that teach and 58% focus on posts that tell a story. But this isn’t actually what consumers want to see. 73% of consumers want to see posts about discounts and services and 60% want to see posts about new products.
Social media should be used as an opportunity to promote your business to a highly engaged group of people which is why we think it’s a great idea to treat them like VIPs.
Show them products before they visit your website or give your followers exclusive discounts or competitions in which they can take part. Content that is purely exclusive to your brand is going to be noticed and engaged with as it will be different to what they’d normally see. You should also stick to using your brand colours and logos in your content so that you can give your audience something they can identify you with.
Reason 2: Learn More About Your Audience
As your social media grows and you gain more followers and engagement, you’ll start to learn more about your audience. You may gain insights into demographics like age and gender as well as what fields of interest they have. By gaining more insight in your audience, you should be able to tailor your content to them.
A great way you can learn more about your Facebook audience is by using their Audience Insight tool. It allows you to see the demographics of your Facebook Page or your competitors' Facebook pages.
You’ll be able to see if the majority of your audience are men or women, what the most popular ages are, if they're married or single and even what level of education they have. It then moves on to show you the most popular job titles for these people and you can also see what other pages they’ve liked, where they are in the world, and what device they use when they view your content.
Seeing which pages your audience like is a great way of getting insights into your competitors. It’s more than likely that if they like your business, they’re going to like businesses that are similar. If you wanted to use Facebook Ads, people who have liked those pages would be great to retarget.
Reason 3: Build Trust
The most common reason consumers reach out to brands on social media is because they have a question or an issue with a product or service. 45% of people said they’ve taken to social media when they wanted something resolved.
No one wants to have a negative impression of their business on social media as it can affect others' opinions of them. So if a business receives a post from an angry customer, they’ll be quick to resolve it. This is why it’s a great way of building trust with your consumers. If you respond to comments, answer questions and resolve issues quickly, others will see you have great customer service.
Trust is also built by having brand consistency. If you have a website someone hasn’t heard of before, they need something to show them you’re a legitimate business. One of the easiest ways of checking this is by looking at your social media. When they do so, they’ll be looking for a few things like your logo and brand colours, the same products, contact information and engagement from others. If this is consistent across all social media platforms, it shows that you mean business and want to promote your brand.
Reason 4: Increase Your Brand Awareness
Another reason why social media is popular for businesses is because of how it can increase awareness. Instagram is a great example of this due to the expedited growth over the last few years.
Did you know 2 billion likes occur on the platform every day? This huge amount of activity means that your content is more likely to be seen and shared. But there are also a few ways you can increase your own brand awareness.
One of Instagram’s best features is hashtags. Hashtags allow you to tag content with a word that is relevant to it. For example, if you posted a photo of sunglasses, you may tag it with #sunglasses or even tag the brand you bought them from. But how do you decide which hashtags are best for you?
There are a number of free tools online you can use, but truthfully, one of the best things you can do is look at Instagram itself. If you choose a hashtag you know you definitely want to use and search for it, you’ll notice that Instagram will recommend other hashtags that are related to it. This means they’ve either been posted together or users have looked at both hashtags.
Reason 5: Drive Traffic to Your Website
Believe it or not, social media is great for driving traffic to your website. You can do this with your organic posts and links to your website, or use paid marketing like Facebook Ads to retarget those who interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram Business Profile.
However, without paying for marketing, there are a few things you can do to help drive traffic. First of all, make sure you connect your catalogue with your Facebook page. This will allow you to setup a Facebook shop where people can browse and purchase products through your Facebook Page. You can do this easily by installing the Flexify app on your Shopify Store and syncing the data source with your Facebook Page.
Additionally, make sure that your Instagram account is connected to your Shopify store. By doing this you will be able to use Shoppable Instagram. This allows you to tag products in your social media content which link straight to the product on your website. This will make it easier for consumers to look at or purchase products they see on your social media.
Your social media builds trust with consumers as it shows you’re a reputable brand, allows you to interact and respond to queries and problems in the nick of time, and provides consistent and relevant interactions which all drive conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
If you want to find out our best practices for driving traffic with your social media, then check out blog here.
Source: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/
