Anyone who doubts the importance of social media when it comes to marketing need only read this one stat: 1.3 billion people use Facebook every day. The fact that they need to be online to do so also speaks to the relevance of Facebook and other social media entities to the marketing efforts of online businesses. They’re in cyberspace; you’re in cyberspace. It would behoove you to hook up.
Benefits of tying the marketing efforts of your online business to social media.
- Increased Conversions – Every time you create a social media post you’re creating an opportunity for readers to become new customers. Every tweet, post, image, video, or comment is a chance to catch someone’s attention which could potentially lead to a site visit and a conversion. These customers don’t have to go anywhere. They just follow the digital breadcrumbs you lay in social media posts to your virtual door.
- Lower marketing costs – Social media accounts don’t cost anything yet they open up a world of potential customers you were previously frozen out of. Each time someone reacts to one of your posts or clicks a Facebook link to find out more about your product or service you’re expanding your potential customer base without writing a check. Why pay for radio or web banners when you can gain access to billions of consumers for free through social media?
- Increased traffic – Before social media exploded into the marketing consciousness the only way to drive new traffic to your site was by ranking for relevant keywords and creating and uploading engaging content regularly. Or you could pay Google to put your link at the top of search results. With social media, however, every free post, picture, and tweet is a potential traffic generator.
- Improved Search Engine Rank – SEO is all about improving your ranking with search engines and social media is becoming an ever more important part of SEO strategies worldwide. Google has made significant tweaks to its algorithm lately that give added weight to your social media presence. To them, a robust social media presence is a signifier of brand legitimacy and a reason to bump you up in search results.
- Valuable Feedback – Until now if you wanted to find out what your customers thought of your product you could hire a marketing agency to convene focus groups on your behalf or ask people to fill out questionnaires. With social media, you can track people’s opinions of your product or service through comments, “likes” and “dislikes”.
Social media marketing is the final piece in the puzzle of a comprehensive marketing strategy for your online business. In very real ways it can be the glue that brings everything related to your product or service together. Building a robust social media presence around your online business allows you to set up your own “off ramps” on the information superhighway so that scores of people who were previously unaware of your brand can stop by your website for a look around.
