What does social media bring for companies
Top 9 benefits of social media for your business
Here are the top nine reasons for what social media brings to businesses and how it can contribute to your brand's success.
Social media has undoubtedly proven beneficial over the past two decades.
Once a communications experiment that later evolved into platforms to find out how much personal data people would provide to their “digital networks,” social media remains a big part of Germans’ everyday lives.
For businesses, social media has created an opportunity to send a brand’s messages to the right people at the right time in hopes that your brand will stand out to them enough that they will take an interest, let alone remain loyal throughout their lives.
There are many benefits to using social media.
Here are the top nine reasons why it’s essential for businesses to have a presence on social media and how it can contribute to your brand’s success.
1. faster and easier communication
Thanks to social media, customers can now contact a customer service representative faster and easier than ever before.
Businesses can also receive, review and respond to customer complaints faster and easier than ever before.
Depending on the industry and the complaint case, challenges may still exist, but the line of communication that used to be somewhat difficult to establish is no longer nearly as difficult.
It’s now faster than ever to contact the right people – and often without even having to pick up the phone – and it’s getting easier as more and more people and brands use social media platforms to stay in touch with the people who matter most to their business.
Customers can now communicate real feedback in real time like never before. Something that companies have been striving to do for a long time.
2. networking and partnerships
In addition to the simplified communication channels, there is also the aspect of general availability.
Let’s face it, there is a small portion of the world’s population that most average people could hardly ever communicate with directly without the right kind of help (publicist, agent, etc.).
Think also of actors and actresses, athletes, and other high-profile people that most of us average people would never be able to interact with.
Social media connects us more easily than ever before.
Even politicians and policymakers were incredibly available – and often faced backlash – thanks to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
And while this is a fun experience when you get a “follow back” from former President Barack Obama or a retweet from your favorite rock band, it also holds endless potential for networking and partnerships that will help your brand in a variety of ways.
Backlinks, shoutouts, referrals and increased brand building are just a few of these opportunities.
Building quality relationships becomes much easier with the streamlined communication we receive through social media, and building relationships with key influencers brings great value to your brand.
Some examples of the added value that these connections enable are
- The trust of the networks and the audience of others.
- Acquiring quality backlinks (which provide an SEO boost and hopefully an increase in the number of referred visitors).
- Potential Business Opportunities.
3. increase organic visibility
There is so much potential value that can be unlocked through social media, aside from the networking and partnership-produced backlinks.
In addition to the SEO value gained from adding quality backlinks to your brand’s website (via social media relationships as well as how social media helps accumulate a variety of link types to build a healthy backlink profile), social media also sends relevance signals and other signals to search engines like Google to ensure popular content is easily visible and shareable.
It’s important to understand how social media also affects SEO.
Google has repeatedly stated that social media likes, favorites, backlinks, etc. are not direct ranking signals – but there is a correlation between social media activity/popularity and how/why they are ranked by search engines.
So even though social media doesn’t serve as actual, full-fledged backlinks, the people, brands and webmasters/marketers who see your brand’s content via social media may very well link to your brand’s content because it’s quality content that provides real value. These backlinks certainly have real value.
4. increase website traffic
Social media channels complement the brand’s website and, if available, its real-world locations.
Social media is designed to reach different audiences in a personable, useful, and entertaining way. And reach out to those potential customers with whom you may never have had the chance to connect your business.
This works well in all cases if done correctly.
Both website traffic and foot traffic should increase accordingly with the free or low-cost social media advertising tools.
5. customer feedback
In the world of business, sales and profits, no matter what your industry is and who you market and sell to, the customer really needs to be the focus.
And success, both digital and traditional, is achieved by understanding – and delivering – the best possible customer service and doing everything in your power to ensure your customers and potential customers have the best possible experience with your company.
Of course, the product or service you sell should also be good, but there will always be dissatisfied customers. How we respond to customers – regardless of how “good” or “bad” the feedback may be – is critical to your company’s online success and its long-standing reputation.
Social media helps us maintain that reputation by giving us platforms to interact directly with our customers like we never have before. It also means we get real customer feedback directly from the source, faster than ever before (and usually much more raw).
Companies should take advantage of this incredible opportunity to build their brand as a true consumer-focused business, and ultimately make the brand’s reputation one that can never be mistaken and has been relied upon by an ever-growing customer base for many years.
6. impress potential customers
Maintaining your brand’s respected reputation is an opportunity to impress potential customers with how you’ve handled other, typically existing, customers.
People often turn to – and even rely on – social media and online review sites to get a good idea of who a company really is. Just like marketers, consumers use social media as a tool to make better purchases and decisions in general.
On average, people consider 10 reviews of a local business before making a purchasing decision. This gives potential customers the chance to see that companies really care about their customers even after the sale, which is so important for them and their business success.
7. branding
While branding is essentially every numbered entry listed in this article, it is important to highlight it as one of (if not the) most valuable social media capabilities.
You may not see the conversion rate through social media (depending on the business and sales structure) as high as other marketing mediums (paid search, organic search, etc.), but the impression a brand makes and the reputation it has built can be greatly enhanced and showcased through social media.
By communicating through social platforms, we can talk about what matters most to our customers, and we can educate them to keep our brands in mind when those important buying decisions need to be made.
Each platform differs in terms of what it does well, the audience demographic, the type of content, and when it is published. The messages of each brand should be tailored as such to the respective platform.
And even though your company’s conversion rate on social media will likely be lower than email marketing or paid search, your business goal will always be conversion rate, so maximizing that conversion rate on all available channels is the real goal.
During a company’s branding journey through social media, you can talk about what’s important to the brand and its customers. Tell the story of your brand; build the legend as what it is worth to the people who dedicated their lives to building the brand.
Share your passion and let others understand and support your brand. That’s the real power of social media, and that’s the biggest impact social media has on most brands.
You can showcase your brand culture and personality, stand out from the rest with the qualities that set your brand apart, attract new, qualified employees, and enhance your business even further.
8. track your competition
Social media channels also allow us to keep our finger on the pulse of not only other marketing tactics and practices, but the tactics of direct competitors.
And we can learn a lot from our competition.
No one is perfect, and we can all learn something. The ultimate goal is for the customer to understand us and rely on us to act with authority in our niche versus the competition.
Our competitors want to do the same as we do. Build and protect the brand’s reputation and ultimately sell its products/services. So it’s worthwhile for us to watch and figure out how our company can better educate and entertain users, as well as the things our brand does well and ways we can do better across the board.
9. user-generated content (UGC) & crowdsourcing of ideas
User-generated content (or user-generated content) is not only free and unique, it can also be fantastically good.
The larger the audience, the more potential content has to truly influence a brand and its messages. Brands receive and can (usually) use this sometimes high-quality content – videos, images, infographics, etc. – with the appropriate permission, of course.
Social media allows us to ask for and then receive this user-generated content directly, but there’s a lot to do in between, too.
For most brands, people will post their content with specific hashtags. So the brand not only receives the content. The content is actually posted on social networks, being seen by each network and person individually. Just like the brand.
Making the most of social media
Every company has different goals and methods for measuring success.
Social media can help achieve these goals. However, it’s important to stick to the basics and use them in a way that makes your brand successful.
Every brand is different. Let your business shine on social media. If you need help with this, do not hesitate to contact us.
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