Social media provides a great way for businesses to nurture their growth and engage more customers—laying the foundation for strong relationships. Social networks can also provide invaluable data on customers and the competition. You can track conversations and engagement to uncover what matters to your target audience and how they interact with your competition.
The benefits of social media apply to businesses across industries and sectors. However, the key lies in understanding how to engage appropriately with your target audience in a way that reflects your brand and what you want to accomplish.
If you want to grow your brand, here’s what you need to know to achieve success with social media:
Why use social media for your business?
Social media has become the focal point of communication for businesses and customers around the world. Customers gather online to engage not only with each other but also with the businesses that interest them. They may discuss pain points, recall experiences with different organizations, and ask questions.
Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, building a brand presence on social media allows you to interact directly with customers and share information with them. You can respond to their questions or comments and establish your business as an industry leader. Considering that 55% of consumers find new brands on social media and nearly 80% of customers are willing to buy from a company after having a positive interaction with them on social media, you can see why this is an opportunity you don’t want to overlook.
Benefits of social media for businesses
Social media can provide several benefits for businesses, but it’s important to note that achieving social media success may require work, time, and an effective marketing strategy. Social media has evolved into such a big part of daily life for customers that the ability to interact with businesses on social media has become an expectation. So, having a brand profile won’t always be enough.
However, if used correctly, the benefits of social media for your business can include:
Helping you meet your marketing goals
Social media can help you meet the rest of your digital marketing goals by amplifying brand awareness, which allows you to engage with current and new customers across a variety of platforms. You can use social networks to promote the material you’ve created for your content marketing campaigns and attract more attention to them.
When your social media goals align with the rest of your marketing plan, you can build a stronger customer base.
Building customer loyalty
When you actively engage with your customers, you have the chance to build a relationship with them. You can respond to their questions and concerns and demonstrate your commitment to helping them solve their pain points. This, in turn, helps build feelings of loyalty toward your organization. An estimated 90% of people who follow brands on social media report buying from those brands.
Increasing revenue
As you improve loyalty among your customers and boost the overall performance of your marketing campaigns, you may also experience an increase in revenue. This is because customers will remember your brand as an industry leader and someone from whom they feel confident buying, which can encourage conversions and profits. You can also use social media to advertise to your target audience and increase your market reach.
Keeping you top of mind
According to Pew Research Center data, 70% of Facebook users check their profiles at least once a day, with nearly half reporting that they check multiple times per day. When you have a profile and strategy that puts your brand name out into the digital atmosphere, you have an opportunity to continually connect and engage. It keeps you at the forefront of customers’ minds so your business might be the first one they think of when they decide to make a purchase.
Benefiting reputation management
With social media serving as the world’s watercooler, it’s clear that customers are discussing you, your business, and your industry regardless of whether or not you’re present. The only difference is that if you don’t have a brand profile to answer claims, complaints, or questions, you’re allowing what other people say about you to run unchecked. Active brand profiles on social media allow you to remain plugged in to what people have to say about your business and respond when needed. You can manage negative reports and even turn them around to reflect positively on your organization.
Promoting faster responses to customers
Customers don’t want to wait days or even hours for responses to their questions. When you have a potential lead considering making a purchase, you also don’t want to let questions go unanswered and potentially lose them to a competitor. Social media provides you with an easy way to stay on top of customers’ communication and get back to them quickly when they reach out.
Helping improve your product and service through customer feedback
Through social media, you can tap into countless opinions about your products, services, and customer service. As you engage with these customers, you can get to know your target audience better, which can help you develop products or services that best align with what they want to see from your brand. You’ll also learn where your products or services are falling short so you can make adjustments to meet customer needs.
Increasing website traffic
Social media is a great way to drive traffic back to your website. You can regularly post articles and other content from your website on social media, encouraging people to click. You can also increase website traffic through brand recognition and reputation on social media. This can then encourage people to click when they encounter your brand in other areas, such as when using a search engine.
Humanizing your brand
Through social media and the ability to engage with customers directly, you also have the chance to build human connections and relationships with your target audience. Social media provides a place to live out your brand values and make them clear to current and potential customers. So, if you claim to be dedicated to the customer experience, your social media strategy should reflect this.
Allowing you to track your competition
Your competition is also on social media, so your presence gives you the chance to observe them. It’s important to know what your target audience has to say about others in your industry, including where they fall short and where they excel. This can help you adapt your strategy to reflect these priorities. You’ll also be able to stay abreast of any news or announcements your competitors make to their customers so you’re not caught off guard and are prepared to engage your audience similarly.
Generating leads
Social media allows potential customers to get in touch with you and reach out to learn more about your company and what you offer. For people considering making a purchase, social media can also make it easy for them to engage with companies they might want to buy from and evaluate their options without any type of commitment. In turn, you can begin to gather information about these leads and nurture them, whether on the social media platform or elsewhere.
Providing real-time customer feedback
When customers have a question or concern about a purchase they’ve made or want to make, receiving their inquiry and responding in real-time can make a big difference. When you receive the question almost live, you have a chance to turn any complaint around and still create a satisfied customer, without allowing negative feelings to fester. You also have the opportunity to address questions and concerns nearly immediately, keeping the conversation moving forward rather than providing an opening for the competition to engage your lead.
Enabling targeted advertising and retargeting
This benefit is particularly significant for those in the retail or e-commerce space. Nearly 70% of shopping carts are abandoned, which means that customers walk away without completing a purchase. Customers who reached this point in their buyers’ journey should be actively engaged to see if you can entice them to complete their purchase. Fortunately, advertising through your social media accounts allows you to specifically target customers who have engaged with you before but didn’t finish a purchase.
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Most popular social media platforms for businesses
When first diving into social media for business, you’ll quickly discover the number of platforms available. However, a few stand out for their popularity with users. This makes them excellent places to begin building your social media presence.
Facebook has nearly 3 billion active monthly users, easily making it the largest social media platform. Most customers expect businesses to have a page on Facebook regardless of their industry.
Once you have a brand profile, take care of it and regularly post and engage with followers. How you engage users on Facebook will likely vary depending on your sector. For example, a business-to-consumer (B2C) business, such as a retailer, might encourage user-generated content from people using or engaging with their product. A business-to-business (B2B) business, such as a SaaS company, might encourage user photos from events and invite discussion related to tech developments on its page.
Facebook offers a variety of ways to engage. A business profile allows customers to write posts on your wall or engage with the content you’ve posted. You can also stream live videos, post images, create polls, and engage with customers in numerous creative ways.
One of the best features of Facebook lies in its analytics tools, such as Audience Insights. You can get a clear picture of how people engage with your posts. If you want to create a Facebook Ad campaign, you can also use the data from this social media channel to create campaigns that target people based on different types of demographic data, such as their interests, ages, and areas where they live.
GoPro has done an excellent job on Facebook, already amassing over 10 million followers. The brand has built its page around actively engaging customers and encouraging them to submit images they’ve taken with the camera. Selected images are featured on its page and can even win awards, building the community around the camera.
Instagram has also attracted an immense following, with over 1 billion monthly active users. This is a highly visual platform that encourages people to post photos and videos. As an app, the vast majority of users also occur on mobile devices.
Given the visual nature of the platform, this is a great fit for businesses that use lots of images, but less fitting for businesses that incorporate images only sparingly. No matter where on the image use spectrum your business falls, if you’re interested in using Instagram, make sure the images and videos posted are high quality.
For businesses on Instagram, one of the best features of the platform is the variety of tools available for engaging customers. You can design filters, use Instagram Live, and create Instagram Stories to build a varied, customized approach to the platform.
You can see an example of a great Instagram page with ApartmentTherapy, a home decor site. The brand uses contests, user-generated content, and high-quality images to inspire those interested in decorating their spaces, especially people in apartments or other smaller living spaces. They’ve attracted 3.2 million followers, clearly demonstrating that their method works.
Twitter boasts 206 million daily active users from around the globe. On Twitter, people “tweet” with 280 or fewer characters. Conversions often include hashtags to signal particular topics and help people sort through relevant conversations that might interest them.
To succeed on Twitter, brands need to be able to cut through the noise and fast-paced conversations. In other words, they need a strong brand voice. Those still developing their voice might want to wait until they can better develop their presence on the platform. While the platform can also support a variety of content types, the core part of the conversation is less visual than on Instagram and similar platforms. Therefore, highly visual companies might not want to devote as much time to Twitter.
For those who do engage, Twitter can work well for posting quick updates and mentioning particular followers. If you want to take conversations private, Twitter also offers a straightforward direct messaging (DM) system. However, when using Twitter it’s important to actively engage with followers and repost other people’s content. Twitter might not work well for companies that just want to post links to their content.
Starbucks stands out for its exceptional usage of Twitter. They regularly retweet their followers, which helps boost engagement.
They also create posts to celebrate their employees’ achievements or to ask questions and directly engage their followers.
Altogether, the brand has garnered nearly 11 million followers on Twitter.
YouTube
If YouTube were a search engine, it would be second behind only Google. It has 845 million monthly active users, with a billion hours of global content watched daily. These large numbers make it an appealing platform for those with the skills and technology needed to produce high-quality videos. However, YouTube does have an internal algorithm that sorts through videos and delivers search results for users. So, make sure your videos are visually appealing and spend time developing your channel to gain traction.
The platform offers unique features that can appeal to people who want to engage with customers this way. In-depth analytics can help creators see not just how many people have watched their videos but also how much of each video they watched, helping brands produce more engaging videos.
A culture has grown around influencers who produce videos regularly for large followings. Brands that don’t have the time or capacity to nurture their own YouTube channel can partner with these influencers to receive endorsements and promotions in their videos, reaping some of the benefits of the enormous audience on this platform.
Lego is an example of a brand that uses YouTube well. The brand offers a variety of creative videos, from designer and gaming videos to celebrity appearances for its Rebuild the World campaign, which encourages children to apply problem-solving skills and overcome challenges.
LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals. It nurtures a more serious atmosphere and emphasizes its value as a site for networking and building professional contacts. It has 310 million monthly active users and over 57 million active organizations.
The business-centered focus on LinkedIn makes it an excellent fit for those in the B2B space, as you can engage directly with people in a professional atmosphere. You can also use LinkedIn to post job openings, join industry-related groups, and actively engage in promoting your organization as an industry leader.
It’s important, though, to maintain a professional tone when creating LinkedIn posts, writing articles, and engaging with others. Keep in mind that there often won’t be considerable overlap in the type of content you post on LinkedIn and other more casual platforms. This need for dual content can lead to a greater time requirement.
Microsoft easily demonstrates how to run a successful business page on LinkedIn. The organization has attracted over 16 million followers because they:
- Showcase helpful videos about their brand
- Share content produced by others that is relevant to their business
- Post content from their executives as well as other thought leadership pieces
TikTok
TikTok claims to have a billion people using the app each month. This platform specializes in short videos that people can post and share, with several popular creations going viral or encouraging users to make similar videos. TikTok might be the most important social tool for businesses that want to reach a younger audience (often referred to as Generation Z). However, the content produced on this platform has to be highly relevant to the audience, done well, and in line with user expectations.
Businesses that want to engage a younger audience and establish a presence on TikTok should focus on creativity and fun in their posts and ads. This platform is more about building a reputation and gaining recognition than it is about making direct sales.
Chipotle has attracted attention for its excellent use of TikTok. The brand has gained 1.7 million followers because of its fun, on-brand content. With ample user-generated content, creative videos, and a consistent strategy, Chipotle has made its mark on the platform.
Valuable tips for social media
As you work on your social media presence, think about incorporating best practices that can help you nurture relationships with leads and expand your brand. Here are a few key tips that can help you get the most out of your efforts with social networks.
Define your social media strategy
Before getting started on social media, work on creating a strategy that will guide your brand. Know what you want to accomplish on the platform, such as driving traffic or increasing brand reach, and how you plan to accomplish that goal. Make sure your strategy aligns well with the culture of the platform (e.g., maintaining a professional atmosphere on LinkedIn). Remember the importance of active engagement with followers on all social media sites; don’t just use a site as a soapbox to post links to your products or services.
As part of your strategy, determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you measure your success. For example, if you want to bring in more traffic to a landing page, you might track your click-through rate (CTR).
Build your presence consistently
Once you create your brand profile, make sure to engage with followers regularly. Respond to their mentions of you, repost their content, and answer any questions or concerns they might have. Use your social media profiles consistently so customers don’t forget about your brand.
Create a content calendar
A content calendar can help you plan what you want to post on different social media platforms without scrambling for ideas at the last minute. Making the most of social media requires consideration and regular engagement; a calendar can help keep you organized and allow you to plan what you will post and when and where.
Perform social media audits
With a social media audit, you can focus on uncovering what has worked throughout your campaign and what needs more work. For example, you can look at details such as:
- Progress of the account since the last audit
- Posts with the most traction
- Who your audience is for each platform and how they engage
- ROI
Use awesome visuals
Visuals can help you tell the story of your brand and communicate ideas in a single image. Focus on creating high-quality images that emphasize your brand persona and what you want people to associate with your organization. Consider the brand story you want to emphasize and try to capture it in your image.
Make sure your image is relevant to your post and what you want to communicate.
As you select images, also consider the platform you’re using. Different social networks might have different size requirements for images to ensure clarity. Knowing these sizes can help you select and modify the images you use to maximize your impact.
Prioritize photos and videos
Many social media platforms support not only images but also video. Users today value photos and videos; thus, social media posts created with these forms of rich media attract more engagement and shares. Create videos that provide value for your target audience and discuss topics that interest them. Track your video statistics, as well, so you can see which videos performed the best. Remember to provide your viewer with a clear call to action (CTA).
Work with organic and paid content
Organic content and posts work well on social media, but you might also want to incorporate paid promotions. You can use these ads to draw attention to your page, encourage clicks for sales, or build brand recognition. Social media platforms often let you target certain demographics versus keywords, as you might see on pay-per-click (PPC) ads on search engines. This can help you find the right target audience and introduce yourself.
Measure performance
Throughout your social media campaigns, measure your success. You should have identified your KPIs in the first step of defining strategy. Now, make sure you regularly collect data from each campaign. Monitor your progress at the beginning and then throughout each social media campaign you run. Compare your progress at each stage and identify areas where you can improve.
Hiring a social media marketer
If you want to reach new audiences with social media, there’s never been a better time to start. An independent social media marketer can help you build your business page on different social media sites, boosting your performance no matter which platform you decide to focus on. See what hiring an independent social media marketer on Upwork can do for your business.
