Social Media Marketing for Business

Using social media marketing, companies can gain traffic, followers, and brand awareness and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So, in short, if you are a business owner, it doesn’t matter which industry you're in, Social Media can help you sell more stuff!

This article explains how using Social Media can help you build your brand, generate leads and boost conversions, foster relationships with your customers, learn from your competitors and gain essential marketplace insights. I’m going to help answer two key questions around Social Media Marketing:

1. What is Social Media Marketing?
2. How Can Social Media Marketing help you Grow Your Business and Increase Your Sales?

So, I'll start by defining Social Media Marketing with a very simple definition because the whole point of this read is simplify things. Social media Marketing is the use of social media websites and social networks to market a company’s products and services. Straightforward right? So, thanks to social media, the geographic walls that used to divide us as individuals and businesses have crumbled, and now, new online communities are emerging and growing, giving businesses like yours and mine access to a bigger audience and customer base.

I feel like this does not get said enough, but Social Media Marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are, starting and joining in conversations as they interact with each other. It’s also about listening for people who might be looking for what you are offering and engaging them in conversations as well as offer them value, with the goal being getting them to trust you and buy from you.

Some of the biggest social media platforms for businesses are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram, depending on your product or service offering. Choosing the right platform for your type of business is important to your business’ success but that’s a conversation for another day.

Now let's move to the benefits of Social Media Marketing for your Business.

The benefits of Social Media Marketing for your Business

1. Allows you to build a strong brand

This is one of the most important benefits of Social media Marketing for your business or organisation. It is mostly important for Small and Medium Sized Businesses because with the right strategy and proper execution, you can play on the same field with businesses much bigger than yours.

In building your brand, you want more people to know about you and what you do and by simply sharing content related to your products as well as details about your company, you can increase your brand awareness and visibility. Social engagements like comments, likes, shares, and re-posts will also help you reach even more people than your immediate circle.

2. Allows you to boost conversions and generate leads

With increased visibility, your business automatically gets more opportunities to convert the audience into paying customers. Social media marketing allows your business to give a positive impression through what is called a humanization factor. When your business shares content or comments on other posts on social media, it personifies the brand which gives you a major advantage. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the saying that People like to do business with other people rather than companies, so having a social media profile for your business allows it to have its own persona.

3. Allows you to build strong relationships with your customers

Social media help you create relationships with customers, which leads to brand loyalty. By constantly interacting with your customers online, your customers will get the sense that you actually care about them, beyond the money they bring into your business. This way, you will not only create customers who are loyal to your brand, but also build a group of people who are eager to recommend you to their family and friends and there is no marketing material more powerful than a customer testimonial.

4. Gives you a great chance to learn from your competitors

Social Media Marketing provides a great way to keep tabs on your competition. This applies to any new marketing tactics they will be using, the products they’ll be promoting as well as their level of interaction with followers. You can take a look at what is and isn’t working for your competition, and use that information to decide the best way to proceed with your own marketing activities. It’s quite the perfect cheat sheet if you ask me.

5. Easily gain marketplace insights

Another valuable advantage of social media marketing is that, it helps you gain marketplace insights directly from your customers. I don’t think there is a better way to know the thoughts and needs of your consumers than by directly asking them and talking to them on a regular basis. You can use social media as a complementary research tool so you can better understand your industry and your customers and give your customers what they need.

I hope that you learnt something new and that you'll choose to take advantage of Social Media Marketing to grow your business and increase your sales. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me on [email protected] or +27 67 805 5591.

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