I know what you're probably thinking. Business's have no place on social media right? It's a place for communicating and engaging with your friends and followers. Yes, that may be true. But did you know it is also true that 90% of marketers say that social media has increased their business exposure, according to hubspot? 80% of these marketers indicated that they have seem a great increase in traffic to their website, and therefor their business, through the likes of their social media channels. So yes, social media a great place to see what your friends are up to on their glorious vacations, but it is also an essential tool to grow you business. Let's look more in depth into the top 10 reasons you should be advertising on social media today.
1.) Increased Brand Awareness and Loyalty
Let's start with the obvious. When you post on any of your social media channels, anyone who 'likes' or 'follows' your page will be able to see that content. They have the opportunity to like your post, comment on it, or even share it with their own friends and followers. When you post interesting and engaging content, this can transform your brand. You can help customers by answering their questions, entertain them with the right content, and even build relationships with them.
Over time you will become more than just a brand name, rather you will become a source for useful information and/or entertainment. With that source comes a huge potential for increased web traffic and therefore ROI. Your exposure will bring in new leads, new consumers, new customers.
2.) Increase Traffic & Conversions on Your Website
Every time you create a social post that includes a link to your website, you are introducing a new point of entry for your viewers and consumers. For example, I am writing a blog post right now. Once it is complete it will be posted on Sierra Media Works' Facebook page to share with followers. The more people that click on this blog post and visit this website, the higher the site will rank on google because it will have an increase in traffic. In short, the more people that visit your website, the higher your website is ranked on google. The higher your site is ranked on google, the more it will come up when people search for anything within your industry.
3.) Target The Right Audience, The Right Customer
How cool would it be to run advertisements that are directed at the exact customers that your business thrives off of? Advertisements that could target a certain demographic- a certain age level, income level- a certain location, and even certain interests. Welcome to social media marketing! Where you can do all of these things! Targeting your advertisements through the likes of social media can foster explosive growth for your business. Have a great happy hour deal going on at your restaurant? Send out a targeted advertisement to the local community to let them know. Have a great sale going on in your shop? Spread the word through targeted ads. Not to mention, it is perhaps the cheapest form of marketing, which brings me to my next point.....
4.) Cheap, But Effective
Did you know that social media advertising is three times cheaper than traditional advertising? And I'm even being generous here. Think about it, you can put $20.00 towards an advertisement on Facebook. You can use the tactics listed above to reach your perfect customer, and with just those $20.00 dollars you have the opportunity to reach 5,000 people all in the local community.
Not to mention the amount of time it takes to run an advertisement on social media. Let's say you want to run an ad in the local newspaper, or a local tv station, or even just hanging up flyers and posters around town. You're going to spend a minimum of half a day on any of these efforts. Not with social media. With your $20.00 advertisement you can have it up and running within an hours time. Cheap, quick, and effective.
5.) Track And Measure, Well, Everything!
When you own a business page on Facebook- or Instagram and Twitter, for that matter- you have the opportunity to see and analyze the insights from your page. What I mean by this, is that you have the ability to track each and every post. See what posts are performing well, where followers are engaging with the post (liking, commenting, sharing), and see which posts aren't performing well. By being able to see this information, you can garner a marketing plan that ensures you are only posting content your followers want to see.
Now, with any advertisements you run via social media you can track everything to the dot. Let's say you run an advertisement for $10.00 over the course of four days. You target men and women ranging from ages 25-55. As the advertisement runs you have the ability to see who is liking he engaging with the post. You can see the percentages of men versus women, you can see the age of each person, and you can see the generalized location of where they are engaging from. You can even go more in depth and determine the cost per engagement and the cost per click for everyone that engages with the advertisement. Through these metrics, you can ensure your marketing dollars are being spent in a useful, and beneficial way.
Conclusion
So what are you waiting for? The longer you wait to get active on social media, the more you are losing out on potential new customers. Social media marketing, when done right, can lead to explosive growth for your business. It can lead to more customers, more traffic, and more conversions. Your competitors are doing it, so why aren't you?
