How Social Media Can Shape the Course of Your Business, For the Better
The revolution of social media in the contemporary landscape has been drastic, especially in the last decade. This ‘newfangled’ approach has transformed various industries, encompassing borders across corporate sectors.
The worldwide web, particularly social media, has opened the doors for global interactions; thanks to the rise of telecommunications which is responsible for the substantial and pervasive shift in the online communication era. Connecting and interacting with people, in real-time, has made it easy and economical. With this type of advancement in technology, human lifestyle is enhanced significantly. People commodifying social media have experienced the wonderful and sometimes immeasurable opportunities and advantages that it provides.
Social Media as the Paradigm Shift
Social networking platforms have become virtual communities, on a global scale. In fact, Facebook itself has 2.41 billion monthly users as of the second quarter of 2019 — making it one of the biggest virtual communities across the globe. For Instagram, the platform has over 1 billion monthly active users, solidifying its unprecedented growth and influence amongst users. Although Instagram was once known as an avenue for the younger demographic, it has gradually and steadily accumulated massive interests, over time, amongst older age groups.
With these massive changes in virtual communities, many business sectors are leveraging the trend by partaking in a digital approach for their endeavors. Social media is forging a new era in the corporate sector by revamping the face of traditional engagement into a contemporary one. While these changes present new challenges and require relative adjustments, the opportunity of digitalization is evergreen.
Gone are the days when companies rely on flashy ad campaigns and formal press-releases, to convince their target audiences. In the age of social media, the courses have changed radically — it’s now about authenticity and building relationships. The previously formulaic branding and marketing game has been taken to the next level! It has also opened up the marketing sphere by leveling the playing field for those in underrepresented groups and those with limited financial resources.
Business Marketing Through Social Media
With social media taking center stage, it is apparent that this major shift in the business landscape, would change the game for entrepreneurs. As a pivotal aspect of digital marketing, social media provides a string of benefits that help reach millions of customers, worldwide.
If you are a smart entrepreneur, you must understand the contemporary tactics of social media marketing — and how it is going to transform your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a small pastry shop or an established city hospital. Social media is an essential piece to seeing your business in a better light.
Let me connect the dots for you, below. Check out these five reasons for how social media can change the fate of your business — for the better!
1. Reach Targeted and Possibly, New Audiences — Social media is an open platform. Your online activities, minus the restrictions you run over your privacy, are broadcasted all over the internet. With this outstanding reach, marketers are leveraging social media to reach out to their prospective customers and buyers. In fact, almost 90% of entrepreneurs say their social media campaigns have played a major role in increasing exposure for their business. In terms of web traffic, 75% claimed they’ve reached a substantial increment.
Although traditional promotional tools — such as television ads, marketing collaterals, and press releases — can be used to reach a global audience, the significant expenses tied with it doesn’t guarantee returns on those investments (ROI). In contrary to this, social media provides innovative yet mostly free tools for reaching your global audience, in a snap! Your carefully curated content can reach millions of people and more than half of them are interested in your brand. Talk about virality!
2. Boost Your Business Brand and Reputation — As a profitable digital marketing platform, social media is your opportunity to build a rapport with your prospective buyers or clients. By humanizing your brand image, you can establish genuine relationships with your followers. Social networking is all about interactions with users and eventually building your brand reputation and visibility.
By keeping up with a strong and consistent social media strategy, that follows your distinctive brand voice, you can significantly increase your online recognition from the audience — and eventually, convert them into brand advocates and customers.
3. Accumulate First-Hand Customer Feedback — “What went wrong?” This is our first question whenever our strategies fall flat along the course of social media campaigns. Collecting first-hand feedback from customers has been made easy through social media. With its specialized reviewing features, seeing what your audience is saying is feasible. With this, you can identify the moving parts of the campaign and what needs to change.
Furthermore, you can leverage the criticisms and make the best use of it for your brand development. Here’s a quick tip: When you answer brand questions through DMs or comments, it shows you are paying attention. Hence, making your prospective client/buyer/patient feel heard and valued.
4. Increase Conversion Rates, The Sales — If you believe your business has the X factor when it comes to scoring real sales/visits you’re on the right track! Another integral purpose of social media is the fact that it is ideal for capturing targeted leads for your business. However, the process doesn’t just stop there. Converting those leads into sales is a whole other challenge. However, with a solid social media strategy, that boosts the overall exposure of your business, obtaining good sales is doable.
I mentioned earlier that interaction is crucial in social media platforms. Communicating with your brand followers — through DMs, comment replies, and shoutouts — form a special bond of trust with them. This illustrates the interest in your audience and their experience — if you’re consistent and patient enough, your efforts will translate to further sales, satisfaction and brand loyalty.
5. Advocate and Influence People About Your Passion — Do you know how many people talk about your brand to others, in a positive light? Have you ever wondered how to make powerful connections, stand out in a busy crowd, and establish stellar credibility? You can! But it will take a series of leg work, flexibility, commitment, and compelling advocacy. While you can promote your business products and services, social media advocacy is a better way to spread the word, with dignity.
What is social media advocacy and how can it elevate or influence your network? Advocacy in social media is about maximizing your social networks of people who share the same philosophy and support, on a specific program.
Let’s say that you run a dental clinic and you pride your business in advocating about dental health and its prevalence in the community. By this means, you’re not only putting your business services in the spotlight, but you’re also making a difference that inspires people to make a change, through your advocacy. To succeed in this, you need to have a profound and authentic understanding of the advocacy that ties with your business. You can address its relevant issues by positioning valuable content on your social media platforms. This type of content must not only address your audience’s needs and pain points, but this should also inspire them to partake in an action — hence, driving more sales/clients/patients!
Takeaway
To question the power of social media is to question the power of water for people to live. As we enter into a new decade (2020), it is difficult to remember what it was like when the world wasn’t completely immersed in social media. Though there seems to be an infinite number of reasons to withdraw from this phenomenon, it can’t be denied that social media has a paramount value to businesses, in today’s world. This isn’t really new news, but a mere reality in contemporary culture. With its continued daily growth, social media is showing no signs of stopping any time soon.
