17 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing: does it even need an introduction? Its presence has become so completely integrated into our society today that it’s hard to imagine life before it existed.

No matter what product or service you are selling, or what industry you’re in, social media is a powerful marketing tool for growing your brand, increasing awareness, and engaging with your customers.

Do you need it for your small business? Absolutely.

Businesses today are expected to have a presence on the major portals, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, and not being there can seriously affect your bottom-line.

The Rise and Rise of Social Media

• For context, as of October 2017, total worldwide population is 6 billion.
• The internet has 5 billion users.
• There are 3 billion active social media users.
• 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels.
• 81% of all small and medium businesses use some kind of social platform.
• Internet users have an average of 6 social media accounts.
• Social media users grew by 121 million between Q2 2017 and Q3 2017.
• That works out at a new social media user every 15 seconds.
• Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp handle 60 billion messages a day.

Why Your Small Business Needs Social Media Marketing

There’s no denying the power of social media and its significance, so here’s why your small business needs to have ‘social’ as a key part of its marketing strategy and plan.

1) It Drives Traffic and Spreads Your Message

It’s important that you keep your audience informed about all of your business’ updates, however, they can easily get missed if they’re only featured on your website. Social media is a way to spread the message further, to reach them across several different and highly popular platforms.

Just releasing a blog only reaches so many people, however placing it on LinkedIn, for example, will put it in front of far more people who can then click through to your website to read it.

2) Boosts Your SEO

Google rewards you with a higher search results ranking when more traffic comes to your site, and then stays there. Therefore, using popular Social Media platforms to post content encourages more people to visit your website, improving your SEO.

3) Networking

As the name suggests, Social Media offers the perfect way to connect and learn from your customers, key opinion leaders, and even other businesses. It’s a great strategy to build genuine relationships, keep your business in the know and interact with the right people to further your success.

4) Your Audience Is Receptive

People who use Facebook and Instagram don’t see them as marketing tools – they see them as social networks. As a result, your audience is far more open to your message than they are with traditional forms of advertising, such as television or radio. It’s also in the digital space, where the content is interactive and immediate, so if people want to know more they can click through and convert quickly, or share with their friends and family.

5) Social Media Marketing allows for Advanced Marketing Tactics

Social Media works well with digital marketing techniques such as demographic targeting and retargeting. By facilitating customisable adverts, this allows your business to target specific customers with filters such as location, education, industry, purchase history, likes, hobbies, interests and so much more.

Delivering content and advertising in this way means that your messaging is being sent to the right people at the right time – far more effective than mass marketing!

6) Events and Public Relations

Social media marketing also facilitates your business’ events and media coverage to maximise exposure. For example, if you sponsor an event, organise a charity fundraiser or have a booth at a convention, you are able to invite people to attend, and then send them reminders and relevant information, as well as spread the word about your involvement. Facebook Live, Twitter Periscope and Instagram hashtags can bring your audience right to you, in real time.

7) The Immediacy of Social Media Marketing

Social media creates a direct and immediate communication path between your business and your customer. This means that as soon as there is an issue or feedback, you know straight away and can react accordingly. Social media allows you to be the first to know and have the opportunity to respond directly, which is something that customers really value.

8) Increasing Brand Loyalty

Businesses and brands that post quality content through Social Media Marketing regularly tend to have an impressive following, simply because people like to keep on top of their posts. This means that Social Media platforms become a breeding ground for brand loyalty as followers begin to discover the real you, while feeling like they are a part of the action.

9) The Competitive Arena

There’s a really good chance that your competitors are on Social Media every day, posting updates and engaging your mutual audience. You don’t want to fall behind their progress and play catch up, because your customer’s brand knowledge will tend to sway toward them and not you. By posting relevant content regularly, you are keeping your customers engaged and loyal to you and not them.

10) Social Media Marketing is an Equaliser

Social media tends to be a fairly level playing field for all organisations on there, which is a huge advantage for small businesses like yours. Sure, some may have bigger budgets, but those who thrive and gain a large following are those who are posting clever, unique, and original pieces of content. By demonstrating brand personality and innovation, your audience will want to follow you over your competitors, which means a greater exposure to leads and awareness.

11) Relevancy

Social Media is so accessible, flexible and instant, that you can post relevant content at the right times and ride the wave of popularity. Often referred to as ‘news jacking’, this is where breaking news comes out, and your brand is first to comment on it, giving you huge exposure.

For example, if there is news about the release of a new phone or gadget, and your business releases a post at the right time all about how your using the phone or gadget in your business, your content can gain a lot of exposure off the back of the bigger story.

12) You’re Always There

Regular posts on social media keep you top of mind for your target audience, whether you’re just posting information or incentives to buy, which means great things for sales and ROI.

13) Being Found Through Keywords

Social Media platforms use the hashtag (#) symbol to highlight and index relevant keywords in your posts, which means that potential customers who are looking for your products are able to find you, even if they’ve never heard of your business before.

14) Identifying New Segments

Connecting and networking on Social Media can see your business joining groups and following industries that help you identify segments that were never considered by the business before. New ideas for products and services may come about due to the questions you ask in a Facebook group, or a trend you observe on LinkedIn.

15) Social Media Marketing is Very Cost-Effective

Most social media platforms are free and don’t require many resources to run effectively, meaning that any results you receive and the brand awareness that you build are very cost effective.

16) Tracking ROI

As Social Media platforms retain a lot of relevant demographic information from its users, their paid adverts have the ability to really drive strong ROI results, and allow you the opportunity to track and measure success at all stages of a campaign.

17) It’s Really Fun!

We’re not going to deny it – social media is really fun! It’s a great way to breathe new life into your branding and business through the creation of interesting content about your updates, deals and events. It’s a really interesting way of engaging your audience and enjoying the experience, all while driving results and seeing success.

In conclusion, social media marketing is making its mark on how businesses do business. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start, as you’re missing out.

How Can GDR Help?

Are you ready to jump in, get ahead of your competitors and take the social media world by storm? Do you want to see your search engine rankings climb and your traffic numbers soar? Are you interested in taking advantage of social media marketing in reaching your customers and seeing an improved ROI on your marketing spend?

At GDR, we understand that organisations and businesses like yours see the importance of Social Media marketing, but often don’t have the time to do it.

That’s where we can help! We specialise in design and advertising, copywriting, content creation, set up, branding and social media management to allow your campaigns to win and retain more customers.

We can create the ideal Social Media marketing plan for your business’ strategy, which will:

• Increase reach to customers
• Provide engaging content to your audience
• Nurture both new and current leads / track ROI

Stay ahead of the competition and let our experts develop a winning Social Media strategy for your business that helps you dominate your local market.

We would love to help!