March 12, 2021

8 Ways Social Media Can Help Grow Your Business

IAre you lookign for ways to grow your business? Everyday businesses are starting to make the transition to market online. These days if a business isn’t using social media to their advantage they tend to gradually fall behind on missed opportunities.

You’d be surprised at the number of businesses that are not doing this. They tend to shy away from social media. ‘I don’t like the negativity around social media’, ‘I don’t have time to sit on Facebook all day’ and ‘it’s not where my customers are.’ These are just some of the most common excuses that have been said to me over the past few months when networking. These negative opinions delay growth and not accepting the change that is happening in the marketing world is foolish for any business owner.

How to use social media can be challenging and for some a little scary, which is understandable. You’re putting yourself and your business out there, to the whole world, just like your website, right?

It’s pretty rare to discover a local business that doesn’t have a website. Social media accounts are following the same trend. They are becoming a necessary tool to gain a successful, growing business. So, how can having a daily online presence help your business today?

Here are 8 reasons why you should be creating that Facebook business page today.

It will Increase Sales

It is a fact that if you have a good, strong strategy for your social media accounts, increased sales will be generated. Sometimes these strategies may include investment, but this will lead to positive sales results if done correctly. Strong content that will encourage people to engage can produce the best results. Using social media to bring brand awareness and overall exposure will generate new interest from people who wouldn’t normally find you. Creating a wider audience leads to the possibility of more sales. As “they” say, you have to be in it to win it!

Saving Money On “Old School” Advertising

In the past companies have focused on spending money on printing brochures, flyers and advertising billboards around their local towns or cities. This does still work today and generates brand awareness for businesses. These types of advertising can rack up and take a huge chuck out of your budget. Using social media platforms allows you to do the same but at a much lower cost. Setting up a business profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter is free. Posting content onto these is also free. You do have the option to spend money on paid advertising, but this is still cheaper than printing. For example, spending $10 on content made for Facebook advertising can reach an audience of up to 500 people per day during a 5-day advertising campaign.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

Before social media came along what other ways would you know that your business was getting a good rep? There was no Yelp, Google reviews or Facebook reviews. I know, as a millennial I don’t know any different. From what I remember, you had to follow up with customers to get feedback. Let’s be honest, most businesses would never bother to do this. If you did follow up with customers and clients you would get feedback, but you would not always get 100% honesty. How many times have you been asked by your waiter how your food is, and you smile back and say “great!” Deep down knowing its actually average or it could have been warmer. Maybe it’s my British showing, but we are sometimes too polite when asked upfront.

It has been proven that people tend to be more honest behind a keyboard rather than face to face. Now, I know this can be negative and there will always be online trolls. However, trolls can normally be picked out and reported. The platforms that allow you to leave reviews allow honest reviews and are guaranteed to give you honest feedback, which will help your business progress.

Marketplace Insights

How do you know if your marketing is working? A way to track would be with generated leads or sales increase. However, with social media, you can track so much more. The business pages’ engagement rates, impressions, likes, followers, comments and more! Each platform has a way you can track your statistics; you can see what’s working, and what’s not. What content gained more likes; what content gained more views etc. These tools should not be neglected and like improving customer satisfaction it gives you important feedback for your marketing team to help the business grow and progress.

Encouraging Engagement

There is a reason why social media is called social media. The idea is to be social. Engaging with questions, comments and messages are a must-do. A fantastic example of a brand that does this is Neil Patel who responds to every single comment that is made on all of his social media platforms! It’s impressive. People really do appreciate that their comment is being read and addressed. Even if it is just an acknowledgment of their positive comment, it can really go a long way. This is a great way to start a business relationship and a great way to gain more followers.

Community Construction

Building an online community can give your business that kicks to reach a broader audience. Ways to do this include being members of online groups or forums. Offering free advice and answering general questions about your industry is a great way for people to gain confidence and trust in your business. This also links up with engagement. For example, by creating an online community it would allow you to participate in Q&As. By asking questions you can see what your audience is looking for, and what would encourage them to become a possible customer.

Brand Awareness

Creating brand awareness online is a huge must. I should have probably put it higher on the list. The list of reasons from 1 to 6 explain the many ways of how you can promote brand awareness. Social media allows you to plaster your logo everywhere and anywhere (if you really want too). Finding new ways to entertain, engage and put forward your brand can be done in so many different ways. For example; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Posting live streams, images, videos, stories. The great part about this is that these ways are always changing. These platforms are always creating new innovative ways that you can market online and to grow your business.

Advanced Targeting

Lastly, and certainly not least. You can target your posts to a certain audience if you want to. You can also plan your posting to a certain time and day. For example, say you have a post that you want to aim at people between the ages of 40+ in on the pacific west coast people you think they will be interested in your brand’s new range of products. You can do this with Facebook Ads. If you do your research and know what works at the best time of day for certain content, then you are solving the puzzle. This is always changing but it’s best to have your finger on the pulse as much as possible.

So, that’s my brief break down of 8 reasons why you should make the move over social media and start creating new and exciting content to gain new followers and gain more brand awareness and profitability. It’s not going to be easy starting from scratch, but I assure you it’s going to be so worth it when you start seeing the increase in sales. Grow your business today!

In addition, social media is a great way to grow your business, is there something we missed? What would you add to this list? Do you have a question?

ArtCreative