Benefits of Social Media Marketing
There are over three billion global active social media users. In 2019, 97% of marketers used social media to reach their audiences. Yet, many business owners or marketing executives struggle to tie their social media marketing into tangible business goals. If you are wondering why social media marketing truly matters for your business, here are some of the key benefits.
Generate conversions:
The first and most obvious benefit of having a social media marketing strategy is the potential of connecting with paying customers and generating conversions. With social media, you are able to specifically target your ideal customers with advertising. You can connect to individuals who may not have heard of your business before, but learn about your offerings through your social media accounts and make a purchase. Having a presence on social media and running social media advertisements can lead to additional sales.
This is one of the most direct ways of measuring “return on investment.”
There are various formulas to help you calculate the value of your social media campaigns.
Yet, beyond the direct monetary conversion, there are a number of other benefits and reasons to invest in social media if you’re still not convinced.
increase brand awareness and brand loyalty:
People often follow their favorite brands on social media. Your social media presence gives you an opportunity to tell your story and foster individual relationships. Businesses that take advantage of this engagement mechanism by connecting with customers on social media platforms they are already utilizing on a daily basis can increase exposure and facilitate conversations that otherwise would not occur. Moreover, businesses can do this in an unobtrusive way by populating your follower’s feeds with valuable, engaging, and relatable content — ultimately leading to increased brand awareness and brand loyalty.
Those who follow you on social media will be the first to hear about updates on your business and learn of any new specials or promotions. The lifetime value of a customer may increase as your brand will remain top of mind and they may share your posts with their followers, further increasing their lifetime value if some of their followers become customers. Social media allows you to be more conversational and show a different side of your brand. The content that you publish on these channels can contribute to your brand personality and help you demonstrate your brand voice. On social media, you are able to make authentic one-on-one connections, rather than just delivering a blanket message to all. Consumers are generally more responsive to this approach and it feels more personalized.
Drive website traffic:
One of the primary concerns of a business is being found on search engines like Google. Google considers the hub score of a page when ranking its importance, which is influenced by social cues. Google ranks a page as important if it is cited by other important pages and dominant social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
“The correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high … The top-ranked websites in Google’s rankings display vastly more social signals than all other pages ... This is primarily due to the overlap between brand websites performing strongly in social networks and being allocated top positions by Google.”
Ranking factors are always changing but it is a safe bet that your social media activity will help boost your appearance by showing your brand is valuable and credible. Let’s see how this might play out. Suppose you sell organic shampoo and want to be on the first page when someone searches “organic shampoo” on Google. More specifically, you want to appear as one of the top three non-sponsored links.
You’ve written a blog about why your organic shampoo is the best and you want it to be seen by as many people as possible. If you have a strong social media following and post this blog to your network, you are likely to get many shares. This gives you a leg up on competitors when a potential customer searches for “best organic shampoo” since your content will be deemed more important and have a higher hub score.
This result amplifies as you remain at the top of the search results. We observe that people tend to copy the decisions of those that come before them. Your hub score will grow exponentially as more and more people share it on social media and as people reference it on their sites. For example, someone may create an article that talks about their hair care routine or favorite organic products, linking to your blog. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that another page links to your blog.
establish Thought Leadership
As you publish content that demonstrates your industry expertise and knowledge, you are building influence within your industry and generating social capital. This is one way to stand out from competitors and contribute to conversations taking place on these outlets, further increasing brand recognition and establishing authority within your space.
Influence Decisions
Influential figures within society have always been central to the spread of information. However, the concept of social media “influencers” is relatively new and has received recent attention. In 2006, Ted Murphy launched PayPerPost which was a marketplace to pay bloggers to create content for brands. This was the beginning of modern-day influence marketing as we know it.
Today, influencers with thousands or even millions of followers are able to inspire their audiences to drive traffic, promote new products, and make purchasing decisions. The top influencers, such as Kylie Jenner with 171 million followers on Instagram, can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per post.
Similarly to public figures, businesses can be “influencers” within their industry and persuade behaviors and actions to benefit their business. When businesses garner influence, they establish a level of trust across their profiles. This is a worthwhile outcome for all types of business, regardless or size or industry.
The rich-get-richer phenomena has been widely studied and applied to social environments. These models assume there is a correlation in decision making based on the decisions of people that act before them. When you begin to grow your social media accounts and presence, it becomes easier and easier for an account to continue to grow. This exponential effect is a powerful force behind why having an active and strong social media presence can generate value for your brand over time and their wide-ranging affect on the success of a business.
Regardless of your business, a creative social media marketing strategy can help you generate conversions, increase brand awareness and loyalty, increase your website traffic and ranking, and establish influence and thought leadership to stand out from competitors. These are all revenue-generating outcomes that your business can benefit from. If you are interested in getting started with social media marketing or improving your existing strategy, give us a call at 585-622-4731.
Dunne Goodwin is a content-driven social media agency. Follow us on social media for digital marketing news and updates. If you enjoyed this blog, please share with friends and colleagues.