If your business isn’t on social media, or if it is only on Facebook, then you should certainly revaluate your marketing strategy. Social media is becoming more and more practical for businesses, and many of the platforms have integrated various features which allow you to maximize your potential as well as your profits and traffic. Here is why your business needs to join the party today, and how it can help you overall.
Reputation Management
Reputation management is an integral requirement for any business. It takes just one disgruntled customer to spread negative comments about you to start an avalanche of bad publicity, this could prove disastrous to your company. Social media can be a great way to manage your online reputation. An unhappy customer is quite likely to take to Twitter or Facebook if you have given them poor service, or they simply perceive your service as poor. Keeping track of comments made about you whether positive or negative, gives you the ability to respond in real time and address an issue.
Social Buzz
If you really want to spread the word about your products or your brand, then you’ll need to create a buzz. This is fairly easy to do on social media, and by combining sites together you can really rocket your sales. The key is to do your research and be active on the sites your customers are using. There is no point being active on Instagram if your tribe use Twitter.
Trust
Businesses that are active on all of the sites their customer use will gain customer trust easily compared to those that have a single inactive Facebook account. Make sure that you maintain your social media sites properly, it is a much better strategy to post a few times each day, than once or twice a week. Responding to questions in a timely manner is also critical. As consumers we have never had more choice, shopping around is no longer restricted in terms of geography. It is just as easy to shop overseas as it is your local store. Making a choice often comes down to who we trust with our credit card details.
Brand
Promoting your brand is one of the most critical reasons for being active in social media. Your brand message is what differentiates you on the global playing field. Not every consumer decision is based on price, if it were luxury brands would not exist. Your brand needs to speak to your ideal client, targeting your message is quite simple with social media. It is a very cost effective medium provided you match your brand to your audience.
Expertise
When you own a business, make sure that your customers know that you are an expert in the field. Facebook isn’t the ideal place to do this, organic reach is almost dead. The sites you want to be active in are likely to be LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus. You could also sign up to forums and other conversational gatherings. By answering questions honestly and professionally, you can really help to establish yourself as a professional in the field. Posting great curated content that would be beneficial to your tribe, is an easy way to position yourself as the “go to” person or company in your industry.
Competition
If you feel as though you are getting drowned out by your competition in the world of social media, sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away is not going to help. If your competition is well ahead of you with their social media presence, align yourself with an on-line marketing specialist and start playing catch up as quick as you can.
Traffic
Launching a new product or service is all about getting seen by the right people. Social Media is one of the most cost effective ways to reach a large and targeted audience. Whether this is in your local area or across the globe. Running competitions, special offers or creating a huge amount of interest before you launch just comes down to an effective on-line campaign. If you are a predominantly on-line business, there is great value in maintaining a strong presence via your social media profiles. Website traffic is the cornerstone of success.
Search Engine Optimisation
Social media helps a lot when it comes to your SEO ranking. Every time you link your social media profiles to your website or blog, you increase your SEO. The more people that visit your blog and the more people that share it on social media, the more chance you have of ranking well on search engines. This is much cheaper compared to paid advertising, but one Facebook page won’t really be enough if you want to rank among the elites. Of course you can implement your own SEO program or outsource this to specialists. Either way ensuring a strong social media presence is going to be a necessary option.
Business Valuation
At some point you may decide to sell your business and pursue other passions, or even retire. Getting the best sale price is always on every owners mind once this decision has been made. Quite often potential purchasers will be looking at a number of similar businesses before deciding on which one to buy. Many business valuers are now putting a value on the “brand” as well as your traditional assets such as profits multiples, stock and other tangible assets. Even if only a small value was placed on your social media assets, a buyer is highly likely to be attracted to a brand with a strong on-line presence over one that does not.
The 7/11 Rule
It is a well known concept in todays age that you need to have 11 individual contacts with a new customer or client, or 7 hours is contact before they are inclined to want to purchase from you or work with you. Once of the biggest mistakes in nurturing a new relationship is going in with your pitch too early. Picking up the phone this many times or attending face to face meetings can be an expensive process. However having some one interact with webinars, blog posts, ebooks or other on-line collateral is a relatively simple and time effective process that leads to that sales call or presentation. Taking that one step further and using your social media to generate those initial leads in the beginning, by offering free tools such as these is a proven lead generating methodology. LinkedIn is one of the best mediums for implementing these type of sales funnels.
The bottom line here is that if you are not forming a social media strategy, most likely your competitors are. Every day you wait is another step ahead for your opposition.
