As of January 2018, there were about 7.593 billion people inhabiting the world. With there being nearly 3.2 billion social media users, it means almost half of the world’s population uses social media at least on occasion. What do these figures mean for your business? They mean that if you’re not using social media to promote your business, good or services, you could be missing out on the opportunity to connect with half of the people occupying the planet.
Is that an opportunity you can afford to pass up? Whether your business caters to a local market or you sell to people all over the world, social media can help you attract more business. That is, a social media strategy that is well thought out and expertly executed can help your organization reach the next level of success.
According to Statista, 77 percent of the people living in the United States have at least one social media profile. As of the fourth quarter in 2016, Facebook was the leading social media site across the globe, with an estimated 1.86 billion accounts. Whatsapp and YouTube were the second and third most popular social media platforms, with 1.2 billion and one billion respective users. In 2016, approximately 196 million people in the United States used social media, a number that’s forecasted to exceed 216 million by 2021.
If you’re skeptical about people using social media being able to afford your goods or services, consider this. Social media usage is highest among people who earn more than $75,000 annually as well as individuals with an advanced education.
Choosing Social Media Platforms for Your Business
While there are plenty of social media platforms you can use to promote your goods or services, it doesn’t mean you need be on all of them. In fact, creating a profile for your business on too many social media platforms can have a negative effect on your social media marketing. That’s because you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin and being inconsistent with your messages. You may also lack the time to keep all of your social pages updated and respond to comments.
To prevent social media from having a derogatory impact on your SMM, it’s important for you to pick the social media websites you’re going to use carefully. Social media sites are differentiated in a variety of ways, including the demographics they attract. This makes it necessary for you to research the platforms you’re going to use to determine which ones are used most often by the members of your target market.
If you sell things to businesses, you may want to use LinkedIn to market your goods or services because that platform is a networking site for professionals. If you sell things to consumers who are largely young adults, you may want to use Instagram or Snapchat instead. If you predominantly market your goods or services with videos, YouTube should probably be on your must-use list of social media channels.
What Social Media Marketing Can Do for Your Organization
If you’re going to use social media for business purposes, it’s essential that you actively engage in some social media management. If you don’t, you’ll never realize the true potential that social media has to yield desirable benefits for your company. Here are some of the benefits social media can provide for businesses of all sizes:
- Increased Brand Awareness: Using social media to promote your business can be a highly effective way to increase brand awareness. People don’t just use social media to connect with brands they’re already familiar with. They also use these platforms to find new products and services. In fact, 60 percent of the people who use Instagram claim they were introduced to new products on the social media site.
- Enhanced Engagement: The whole point of social media is to interact with others and share information. By using social media for your business, you no longer have to wait for someone to walk through your doors, call your company or visit your website to interact with them. Instead, you can engage with your clients and prospects on your social media pages any time of day or night.
- Greater Trust: When you have a solid social media strategy in place, you can build trust in your brand through social media. You can use your social pages to establish your organization as a thought leader that provides reliable information about subjects that are directly related to your target audience. A study conducted by LinkedIn in partnership with Edelman revealed that 80 percent of consumers say thought leadership builds trust successfully. LinkedIn, or more specifically, the LinkedIn Publishing Platform is a fantastic channel to use to establish yourself as a thought leader.
- Increased Traffic: When used effectively, social media can be a great tool for driving traffic to your website. Be sure you make it easy for your social media followers to navigate to your website by providing a link in your social media posts.
- More Leads: Social media is a low-commitment, non-threatening way for people to show they’re interested in your business and the things you sell, which makes social media in general a great channel for lead generation. To make things even easier, a lot of social media platforms have advertising templates that are specifically designed to generate leads.
- Increased Sales: When used correctly, social media can become a vital part of your sales funnel, one you can use to hasten a consumer’s journey from being a new contact to becoming a paying customer. As more and more people use social media and digital sales tools improve on social platforms, more consumers will rely on social channels for specific product searches and ecommerce in general. Get ahead of the game and make sure your social media marketing and sales goals are in perfect alignment now.
Contact Beyond Custom Websites
If you want to enjoy the benefits that social media has the potential to provide but lack the time or expertise to implement a social media strategy, we can help. Our digital marketing agency offers a suite of social media marketing services to small and midsize businesses in a wide variety of industries. Contact Beyond Custom Websites and put our SMM services to work for your business today.