7 Benefits of Social Marketing (For Business Owners)

Social marketing is used by 96% of marketers. Tells you something, doesn’t it? If all those marketing professionals include social marketing in their strategies then, as a business owner, it’s probably worth exploring.

The problem that you probably have is that you aren’t sure what to expect from social marketing, so you don’t know how much money and time to invest in it. What does success look like? What ROI can you expect?

1. Brand Awareness

2.77 Billion people use social media every month. It is probably safe to assume that your target customers are among them.

Like all advertising, you need to promote your business where it will be seen by the right people. The beauty of social marketing is that you have more control over who you advertise to when compared to other forms of promotion.

When you post to your business page, take part in group discussions and answer questions using your industry experience, you are increasing your brand’s awareness where it matters.

Compare this with a lamp pole advert or print ad. Blanket advertising is for people who sleep on their money.

2. More Website Traffic

Great news! Social media business pages all have places for your company’s website link.

When you post and comment to increase brand awareness, people will go to your page to find out more about your business.

If they want to find out more, they will click on your website’s link and look for the information they want. This means more traffic through your website, which should be designed to generate leads for your salespeople to convert.

The best part about this? It only costs a little time.

3. Improved Search Engine Rankings

Search engines crawl the internet for mentions of your business and factor this into their ranking of your website.

Social mentions are a strong quality signal for search engines.

The more activity around a business page that is linked to your website, the better Google and co. will rank it in their index.

The benefit for you is that your website will start to see organic traffic from people who are searching for the products or services you offer.

4. Higher Conversion Rates

Another advantage of social marketing is an effect called brand personification. People start to identify with your business because of what they see on social media.

This brand awareness turns into brand trust and means that people are more likely to make a purchase.

In fact, social marketing is 100% more effective at making conversions than traditional outbound methods.

5. Better Customer Satisfaction

With so many people on social media platforms, businesses have started using it for customer service, and rightly so!

Today’s consumers aren’t shy to ask questions, make recommendations, report bad experiences and leave positive reviews on social media.

Many business owners shy away from social marketing for this very reason. They don’t want their dirty laundry out there in the public domain. But studies have shown that effectively dealing with your customer’s complaints online provides prospective customers with the confidence they need to make a purchase.

People are generally reasonable and don’t expect perfection. If you can fix the problem, it reflects well on your business.

6. All Businesses Can Use Social Marketing

Social media business pages are free to set up and use. If you have the time to engage with your target market and post useful content, you can generate leads for your business for free.

When you are just starting out, or your sales have hit a glass ceiling, social media is the perfect way to dip your toe into digital marketing without having to spend any money.

There are so many cases of small, start-up businesses that grew and survived using just social marketing and you can too.

Wrap Up

Some of you are reading this have been thinking about using social marketing for a while now and are trying to make sure that it’s right for your business before calling a few social marketers.

If you feel that your business is ready to grow, and you have the money to invest but not the time, then give me a call. I will set up a time to meet with you and discuss social marketing in more detail. No commitments, no surprises.