The Impact of Social Media on Business in 2021

Social media has had a huge impact on how businesses find and communicate with their audiences.

About 40% of the world’s population, or nearly 3 billion people, are active on social media networks in 2019. Marketing via these networks is naturally critical for any organization selling products or services, either locally, regionally, nationally, or across the globe.

The Benefits of Social Media Marketing For Businesses

For businesses, social media presents vast opportunities to promote their product or service. Just as popular social media sites allow users to connect with friends and family in faraway places, they also are powerful ways for marketers to create two-way conversations with potential customers.

Users now expect to interact with brands, which means that marketers have incredible opportunities to create ways to drive demand and expand the reach of what they are selling.

Through social media, marketers can:

• Engage their audience. Engagement is a great way to establish trust with customers and build a relationship that can develop over time.
• Engagement leads to loyalty with the brand. Users can get to know the brand more intimately through news updates, informational and entertaining videos.
• Integrate with other channels. Because social media integrates so well with other channels, it gives marketers the ability to boost campaigns in ways that were not possible in the past.

Social media has transformed that by:

• Allowing startups to get in front of a targeted group of people virtually
• Changing the way businesses communicate with their audience
• Replacing business cards (which often end up in the trash) by popping up in your audience’s feed
• Making it easy for businesses to provide value upfront prior to asking anything from a prospect

HOW TO Creating Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

It is important to create a strategy before jumping into the practical details of engaging prospects on social media. This involves taking the time to understand your audience and what they care about. That way you can:

• Determine what kind of content will work, whether it’s video, graphics, images, or text.
• Establish the tone, style, and even the repetition of the content.
• Figure out what topics will resonate with your audience. You may know your audience likes video but you might not know what kinds of videos will keep them engaged.
• Understand how they consume content. Do they like deep dives into long white papers or just quick-hits? Demographic information will help you focus on the types of content that will lead to the best results.