Looking to grow your business but aren’t using social media? Here are 10 reasons why you should!
Grow your Business
All of your customers are using social media so why aren’t you? If you want to find out who your customers are, what they want and what they think about your business, then there is no better resource than social media.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Linkedin can each give you access to new audiences and provide spaces for you to engage with potential customers on their level.
You can reach out to new audiences to generate awareness, deliver specific conversion goals, generate leads or any other growth objective you have. Plus, because social media is so diverse, you can approach advertising the way you want. Just be sure to stay within the policies of your chosen platform.
Build Trust
When it comes to establishing a brand, you need to be able to establish trust. One of the first ways people check whether or not your business is the real deal is by checking your social media. If it’s non-existent then that can put a lot of potential new customers off.
Building trust is about building relationships with customers. If people can’t see your business and interact with it, then they won’t be able to build a relationship with it.
Social media also offers space for people to talk about your business. By building your business network online, you can have more control over the things people say about your business. This doesn’t mean that you should be censoring criticism. Instead, social media can help you to see what people are saying and respond. You can allow people to review your business and comment on new products.
By engaging with customers and providing a space for them to interact with your business, you can build trust by showing that you care about their feedback and gain better insights into what your audience wants and expects.
Connect with Locals
If you have a small local business, then putting it on the internet might not seem practical. After all, the people in your area know about you, don’t they?
Not necessarily! Using social media to reach people in your local area can really help you to establish a business that benefits your community. Whether you want to hold live events and workshops, showcase new products, advertise sales and special offers, or are even looking for help, social media can really help.
Local Facebook groups are a great way to get started. Whether you live in a big city or a small rural village, there’s probably a Facebook group that is filled with locals who are primed and ready to engage in community events and support local businesses.
Another great thing about local groups is that you can ask people their opinions directly. So, if you have an idea that you think might be good, why not ask the locals whether they would like it before you invest. This can save a lot of time and money, and you might even get some helpful suggestions thrown your way.
Increase Traffic
When it comes to having a successful business on or offline, the aim of the game is to drive more quality traffic. Whether it’s getting people to come to your store or generating more conversions, the more interested visitors you have, the more money you’ll make.
Social media is one of the best traffic sources there is in terms of both paid and organic traffic, although organic traffic on social media is becoming more difficult to obtain.
Social media allows you to funnel traffic from one place to another with relative ease. It can also help you to establish exactly where your core audiences are, allowing you to target them accurately and relevantly.
Customer Service
If you have a product or service that you have developed, and you really want to know what people think about it and how they interact with it, then social media can help you.
When people purchase things online, it’s not always easy to get help when things go wrong. Emails can be slow and are easily missed, especially when your company is growing. With social media, you can interact with people directly, and answer their questions instantly.
Chat Bots
Once your business starts to grow and you receive a larger number of enquiries on a daily basis, you can use a chatbot to help you out. Chatbots can help you filter messages by giving different response options. Try to navigate people with frequently asked questions to their respective answers, and then filter out people who have more specific problems by allowing them to contact you directly.
Note, if some questions come up frequently, then take another look at your initial sales flow and see if you can highlight that information. Details such as opening hours and location are the most common. If these are clearly visible on your site, then you can filter out some of the noise and focus your attention where it really matters.
SEO
There are a lot of debates regarding whether or not social media can boost your SEO score. You’ll never pop up on a google search for something you post on Facebook, (unless you go viral) however, there are still ways social media can help your SEO and make you more discoverable.
Posts on social media sites like Quora and Reddit do show up on Google. Therefore, if you are knowledgeable in a particular area and can give people honest recommendations while answering their questions, then you can find that your answers pop up when people google specific questions.
Another benefit of social media is that Google values sites with high traffic volumes and low bounce rates. If people like what they see on social media and can get more of the same from your site, then you’ll have relevant traffic, which should help your Google ranking increase.
Direct Marketing
If you’ve got a specific conversion target in mind, then social media is one of the most powerful tools there is. You can develop adverts that reach thousands of people each and every day, and which are hyper focused on generating your desired outcome.
Facebook Advertising is the most popular social media traffic source, and it can allow you to target your audience quickly and accurately. You can and should set up multiple adverts to see which ones work best to achieve your targets. You can then balance your costs accordingly to run profitable campaigns and grow your business.
Competition
If you’re not on social media, there is a high chance that your competitors are, and this can give them a big advantage. When it comes to finding trustworthy businesses, a lot of people will first check to see whether or not a company has a social media presence. If they don’t, then they wil most likely go with a competitor who does. Especially if the competitor has real reviews from real people.
The added benefit of being able to find your competition on social media is that you can also see what they are doing and what tactics they are using to reach new audiences. It’s never a good idea to steal ideas, however, if they are running offers that you think you can beat, then why not challenge them?