Why is social media important for your business? 

Let’s have a look in more detail at why social media is so important for your business: 

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1. Build brand awareness

Brand awareness and brand recognition are key to your success. Customers like to buy from the brands they trust and recognise. Building a group of followers on your social media channels helps you to build a community of customers who are likely to buy from you when they need your products or services. 

Social media can help you to keep your brand in the forefront of your customer’s minds while they’re browsing and is a quick and easy way to get in front of even more potential customers. 

To build brand awareness, share your content, business updates and engage with your customers on the channels you know that your target audience uses. This will help to set you as an expert in your industry and build trust so that people will want to buy from you in the future. 

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2. Increase traffic to your website 

Being consistent with your social media strategy can help to drive traffic to your website - it’s not an instant solution, so you will have to work on it. 59% of the world’s population uses social for an average of 2 hours and 29 minutes a day - so, by increasing your activity and gaining more followers, you’ve got access to a huge number of potential customers who are actively using the channels. 

Try and maintain consistency and provide your followers with informative and engaging content. Whether it’s imagery, video, or text-based content, make sure your followers are provided with something valuable and avoid being too salesy. These channels allow you to drive traffic alongside any SEO or PPC campaigns you might be running. 

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3. Establish your brand as a thought leader 

When you create content for your brand, it’s important that your customers think of you as an expert in your industry and will learn to come to you when they have a question. Social media allows you to repurpose and share your content on a range of channels and helps you to connect with existing and potential new customers. 

If you continually offer helpful, insightful, and educational content to your followers, you will build trust with them, and they will be more likely to come to you first when they need something in your industry, or they have a question. 

4. Engage with customers more closely and build relationships 

Social media now allows you to engage with customers directly, either if they have a question pre-purchase, after they have purchased, or if they have a complaint or customer service problem. 79% of customers now expect a response from brands within 24 hours so, you’ll need to keep an eye on your channels or have a dedicated person responding to enquiries on social media. 

In addition to customer service, social media allows you to showcase your brand and provide a more personal touch. You can also ask for reviews, showcase your new products and services and ask customers to share their experiences with your product or service to show others more about your business. 

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5. Cost-effective

Aside from the time and resources, it takes to create and post content, posting on social media and creating a following is free. If you want to increase your results, you can pay to promote your business through ads but, you can do this with a minimal budget. 

Make sure that the organic content you post and share isn’t too salesy or worded in the same way as an advert. This isn’t what customers want to see, and you will lose followers quickly! In addition, social media platforms know when you’re trying to sell organically and have restricted the reach of unpaid posts. 

Using social media effectively will help you to drive traffic to your site, build brand awareness and generate leads for your business, and it won’t cost you too much either. Social media can even be used to stay in touch with existing customers and maintain your relationships so they purchase from you time and time again. 

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6. Use retargeting to re engage website visitors 

Did you know that 45% of customers visit a website to just research the product or service they’re looking for on their first visit? This makes retargeting a great tool for your social media strategy. 

You can set up retargeting campaigns on channels such as Facebook and Instagram. It works by tracking visitors to your website and adding anonymous cookies to their browser. Then when they visit a social media site, they are shown relevant ads based on the products or services they’ve viewed or the pages they have visited. According to research, retargeting can improve ad engagement rates by up to 400%. 

Retargeting allows you to keep your brand in front of customers when they’re browsing on their favourite social media channels. Converting potential customers who have already interacted with your brand and have an awareness of who you are and what you do is easier and more cost-effective than constantly generating new leads. 

7. Learn more about your competitors 

Social media provides you with a great opportunity to have a look at what your competitors are up to and see if there are any gaps in your strategy. Have a look at what they’re posting and how their followers are interacting with them. 

If you’d like to find out more about social media and how it can help you to drive results for your business, sign up to our newsletter. 

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