Social media marketing is an indispensable part of the digital marketing strategy toolbox. You’ll spend less money and still reach a wider audience compared to traditional marketing strategies. The problem is, there are so many social media platforms on the Internet. Which ones should you choose for your business?
5 Benefits Of Using Social Media For Your Business
If you asked friends and associates for their recommendations on which social media platforms you should use for your business, chances are you’ll get different answers.
We created this article to remove the guesswork. To clear all doubt, we included the key statistics on why a particular social media network made our list. Likewise, we added tips on how to use the platform for your business.
If at this point, you’re still not sure why you need social media marketing, here is a short rundown on its 5 benefits for your business.
1. Build Your Business Brand – To have a successful social media strategy, you must stay active. Post at least once a day. If you’re able to do this, more people will see your content and be interested in what your business is all about.
2. Engage With Your Customers – Social media makes it easy for you to engage with your customers through commenting and messaging. Keep in mind that not all comments will be positive. Your mindset should be “It’s better to be talked about than not talked about at all.” If you receive a negative or less-than-flattering comment, reach out to the person and engage in a respectful manner. This is a great opportunity to build a strong relationship.
3. Generate Leads – Social media marketing is a numbers game. Let’s assume your post gets seen by 500 people. We can conservatively expect 10% or 50 to engage with your post. Of the 50 people, 10% or 5 can visit your website, and 2% or 1 person might buy. “One sale” might not sound enticing. But if this happens on a daily basis, you won’t have a problem generating regular sales for your business. Now, increase the Audience Reach to 1,000 people and do the Math.
4. Improve Your Search Rankings – Google’s algorithm doesn’t incorporate social media as a ranking factor. However, social media will provide your content a channel that can drive people to your website. Your challenge is to consistently create content that’s:
- Unique
- Informative
- Useful
- Engaging
- Relevant
It’s important to always include your website URL at the end of the lead-in posts to your social media content.
5. Boost Your Sales – It’s not uncommon for customers to want to transact with you directly on your social media page. For example, a customer might want to purchase via Facebook Messenger. When this happens, redirecting the customer to your e-commerce website might prove to be an inconvenience that you’ll just have to provide other means to close the sale. Facebook has a feature that allows you to set up an online store on your Business Page. You can take advantage of this feature to close out transactions but be ready to transact via Messenger.
If you’re convinced that you need social media marketing for your business to grow, let’s turn your attention to the top networks you should consider in 2021 and most likely, 2022.
Let’s start off with the consensus #1 social media platform for business.
1. Facebook
If your business isn’t on Facebook, it’s not on the Internet.
That’s an extreme way of highlighting the importance of having Facebook in your social media marketing strategy. Just the numbers supporting Facebook is proof enough that you should join its community:
- Number of monthly active users: 2.70 Billion; up from 2.45 Billion (2020)
- Number of daily active users: 1 Billion
- Number of social media users on Facebook: 60%
- Number of FB small business pages: 80 million
- The average amount of time spent on FB by a user: 10 minutes
Facebook continues to grow and reportedly earned US$86 Billion in 2020. If this is your first time doing social media marketing, Facebook is an excellent platform to start out with.
How to use Facebook for your business:
- Create a Facebook Business Page – Make sure to use a high-resolution image of your brand and a relevant image for your business profile picture.
- Post 1-2 times per day – Staying active is important but focus on the quality of the post. If you have nothing relevant or useful to share, don’t post. Your social media campaign on Facebook won’t take a hit if you don’t post for a few days.
- Invest in Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads will place your content directly in front of an audience with the highest probability of patronizing your brand.
2. YouTube
YouTube has grown exponentially in the last few years. With more than 2 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the second most popular social media platform behind Facebook.
Here are other YouTube statistics that should encourage you to start a channel:
- Number of hours worth of YouTube videos streamed daily: 1 Billion.
- Number of channels checked out by daily visitors: 8.89
- Percentage increase of videos with the keyword “home office”: 210%
- Percentage of B2B decision-makers who were influenced by YouTube to make a purchase: 50.9%
- Percentage of viewers who bought a product after seeing an ad on YouTube: 70%.
These statistics prove that YouTube has grown not just in terms of revenue but in terms of purpose. What used to be a source of entertainment, has now become a valuable source of information.
In that regard, allow us to share one more stat:
72% of YouTube streamers report they used the channel to help them get fit and healthy during 2020 – the year of the pandemic.
How to use YouTube for your business:
- Before you open a Brand Account on Google – To start a YouTube channel, you have to first open a Brand Account on Google. Before you do that, research your competition. Find out what types of content they’re putting out and take note of the ones that are generating the highest engagement. Also, create an Audience Profile. Gather data from your website or if you have, from another social media platform. At the end of every month, use YouTube demographics to finetune your Audience Profile.
- Optimize your channel – First and foremost, YouTube is a search engine. Similar to its parent company, Google, it ranks content based on a specified set of factors. Optimize content by embedding high-ranking keywords in the title and description. Create fresh, unique, useful, informative, and engaging content that will compel more users to patronize your channel.
- Engage your viewers – It’s perfectly fine to stay on a script but from time to time, veer away from the lines and just talk to your audience from the heart. Don’t hesitate to remind your viewers to “Like”, “Share”, “Subscribe”, or “Ring the Notification Bell”, at the end of your video. If they love your content – they will!
3. Instagram
How many of you have entered a cake shop wanting a cheesecake only to change it to a Sacher Torte with Schlag? Or how many of you only intended to bicep curl 50 pounds then at the last second, increase the weight to 100 pounds?
Such is the power of the Instagram effect!
Image-based content creates engagement faster and at higher levels compared to text-based content because it stimulates the sense of sight and sound (if video-based) and in so doing, triggers a wide range of emotions from your audience.
It’s no surprise that Instagram has grown from 1 million users during its first 2 months in 2010 to over 1 billion users in 2020.
Here are a few more noteworthy numbers about Instagram:
- Percentage of users who log in every day: 62%
- Number of clicks on commercial posts: 130 million
- The average number of minutes per day a user spends on Instagram: 30 minutes
- Number of Instagram users who visit a Business Page every day: 200 million.
- Number of Instagram users who click on posts about shopping: 130 million
How to use Instagram for your business:
- Identify your target audience – The demographic of Instagram users is quite young. The majority of its community members are in the 25 to 34 age bracket. Also, the demographic on gender is too close to call with 51% women and 49% men comprising the Instagram community.
- Write a good Business Profile – You only have up to 150 words to make a good business bio. Make the most of it by getting straight to the point – what is your business all about and why should consumers choose you?
- Create a storyline – Show your followers how your products are made. Let them know what a day is like in your office. Bring your followers to a special event such as a product launch. And always use excellent quality images!
4. Twitter
Twitter’s short messaging format makes it an ideal social media platform for marketing and promoting your products because the act of purchasing is often triggered by an emotional response.
Short messages also resonate faster and when properly crafted, they can compel the reader to act accordingly.
The numbers on Twitter show that it’s a great way to engage with your audience:
- Increase in engagement when tweets are supported by videos: 10x
- Number of tweets sent out per day: 10 million
- The size of Twitter’s advertising audience: 353 million
- Percentage increase in Twitter usage because of the pandemic: 9.6%
- Percentage of B2B content marketers who use Twitter: 87%
How to use Twitter for business:
- Create an eye-catching profile – In the Twitter world, great visuals will always stand out. Create an eye-catching business profile by uploading a high-resolution image of your business logo and have a captivating design for your banner.
- Add a CTA to your Twitter handle – If you own a coffee shop called “Morning Java”, instead of using @MorningJava as your Twitter handle, add a CTA. For example, @GetMorningJava or @WakeUp2MorningJava.
- Tag Your Followers – Twitter is a wonderful social media platform to host events or contests. Going back to our previous example, Morning Java can have an anniversary giveaway of a large Americano for the first 10 visitors to a particular location. Then, tag a number of your followers who live near that location.
Conclusion
In Part 2 of this article, we will discuss four more social media platforms that you can consider for marketing your business.
If you can’t wait and want to get your social media marketing campaign running, you can certainly do quite well with the four listed in this article.
We recommend starting out with just one social media platform because it will be easier to manage and monitor the results. Get yourself well-acquainted with the social media platform before adding another network to your strategy toolbox.
An easier option would be to have us run your social media campaign for you. We have content writers with the skill to optimize your posts and graphic designers who can create amazing logos and images to give your brand a boost.
Part 2 of the article will be dropping very soon! In the meantime, if you found Part 1 informative and interesting, feel free to share it with your community.
