When you want to discover a new brand, restaurant, or any place of business, would your prefer to call and ask them your qualifying questions, or would you rather do a quick google search to see what the web recommends?If your answer was the latter, you’re not alone.
And because of this, having an online presence via social media has become extremely important for businesses of all sizes.
Not to mention that there are now 7.2 billion people on the planet, and nearly 2.1 billion have social media accounts. That gives you, as a brand or marketer, a huge audience to get in front of. According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers in 2014 claimed that social media marketing was important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites. Unfortunately, so many still don’t really understand the value of social media and the impact it has on their brand.
6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Stop Ignoring Social media:
- Richer Customer Experiences.
Having exceptional customer service and a smooth and painless customer experience is crucial to any business. Having both means always being available for customers to get in touch with you and to put out fires. Because social media at its core is a communication channel, customers expect to get in touch with a representative when calling isn’t an option (or desired). As important as it is to steadily be available for customer or prospect social mentions, it is just as important to utilize social media to create meaningful relationships. Use your preferred social media platform to connect with customers and build loyalty with them.
- Increased Brand Recognition.
Your brand’s social media pages are channels for your brand’s voice and content. Having social media profiles set up with content posted regularly will increase your brand’s visibility, which therefore makes you more accessible for prospects and more familiar to existing customers.
- Incredible Customer Insights and Instant Feedback
Given the power of social media, we live in a pretty transparent world. We can read about other customers’ experiences on numerous sites, and as marketers we can gain valuable information such as what customers are interested in and how they behave. This information can be used to alter your company’s everyday processes, the onsite customer experience, or fix a flaw that you were not otherwise aware of. Utilizing social media to listen to your customers allows you to be proactive and self aware.
- Decreased Marketing Costs.
Focusing your marketing strategy on internet listing sites and passing out branded marketing collateral takes a lot of manpower and can drain your budget. But with social media, 84% of marketers found as little as six hours of effort per week was enough to generate increased traffic, according to Hubspot. And although Facebook is becoming a “pay to play” platform, both Facebook and Twitter ads are relatively cheap. Social media is the easiest way to generate leads and at a fraction of the cost of outbound marketing.
- Increased Inbound Traffic.
With the popularity of smartphones and living in a highly connected world, inbound traffic should be a big focus for all businesses. Inbound marketing makes your company easier to search for online and draws customers to your website. For everyone social media profile you create for your company is another pathway leading to your website. Not to mention, the more you post to your social profiles, the more inbound traffic you will generate.
- Improved brand loyalty.
Social media is essential for brand loyalty because it gives your advocates the tools to create buzz surrounding your brand. Having a presence online will allow your advocates to build loyalty by engaging with your social content, mentioning your page in personal recommendations, checking in, and leaving positive reviews. Ignoring social media would let your advocates sit at bay without anyway to express their loyalty.
Social media is here to stay and there is no better time to jump on board than now. The longer you wait, the more prospective customers are going to your competitors’ websites.