Are You Anti-Social?
Why Every Business Should Have an Online Presence
Big or small, businesses all over the world have turned to social media. An effective tool to promote your ideas, products and services, social media can build and grow your business. Yet some people are left unsure, skeptical of there being any real benefit to all the Tweeting and blogging going on around them. Let’s investigate the top reasons your business will adapt and thrive with social media.
Target
Demographics can be broken down with a variety of filters to help you understand how to best target customers. Gender, location, relationship status, language, age and more can be observed and worked into effective advertising strategies on social media. It’s important to target your audience with these details in mind in order to generate more traffic and to grow different areas of your business.
Budget
You have a brand to promote. What better way to get your word out there than to do it for free? Social media offers an avenue to advertise for free or at very little cost. Easy to manage, edit your profile and post, consider a Facebook page to get the ball rolling. Ads can be created and boosted (promoted for a dollar amount you define) so that your news and business can be displayed on peoples timelines. Traditional advertising (print, for example) can be expensive, especially for new businesses. Why not consider setting up a Facebook page today?
PR
Instant feedback is priceless. Social media is ideal for networking and establishing relationships with your client base. Customers have an outlet to leave comments, rate your business and participate in posts, to which you are able to reply instantaneously. It’s important to have this dialogue in order to get to know your customers, provide answers and solutions, and to ultimately expand your business. Thanks to social media, communicating your brand has never been easier!
Likes to Leads
Eventually, as your presence on social media grows, so will your following of friends and customers. Turning a “like” into a sale involves active participation online. Engage your audience with regular posts involving questions, polls, contests and more. Posting likeable content can lead to sharing on other users’ profiles, further promoting your brand at the click of a button. The advertising chestnut, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” couldn’t be more true than on social media.
Speed
Traditional advertising involves not only more money but more time spent as well. Effective advertising depends on delivering your message to an audience in the shortest amount of time possible. Sharing across social media platforms is quick and allows for the alignment of content and your brand image. With the ease of posting on social media and instant sharing of your messages, customers are kept up to speed on your latest promotions, and you’re kept in the loop with your customers.
Traffic
You have a website and only need a website, you say? Traffic to your site isn’t driving itself! A top benefit of social media is the ability to lead customers to your site through sharing, calls to action and linked posts. Plus, the higher the share rate of a post, the higher the chances of it showing up as a recommended search engine result. A customer on your social media pages is only a click away from viewing your webpage, so use it as a tool to get them to where you want them to be!
Analytics
How do you keep track of all those online customers? Analytics provide behind-the-scenes results of your online performance across platforms. This data is invaluable against your competitors, allowing you to monitor ads, view traffic from social media to your site, set goals and more. What’s more, you can cleverly follow your competitors’ success by researching their mentions, posts, ads and products.
Growth
Social media let’s you monitor not only your online presence, but your customers’ as well. A little bit of detective work can reveal goods and services in demand through posts and analytics. By researching your demographics you can target ads toward people who aren’t in your network but could be! More likes, more shares, more customers.
So, which is the right one for my business?
With so many social media avenues, one or all may be in your business’ best interests. Consider your business plan, target markets and goals.
Posts reach a wide audience
Ability to drive website traffic with ads
Ability to connect with customers and encourages dialogue
Perfect for sharing information about your business along with personal posts and customer feedback
Younger demographic
Fast-paced news feed with immediate feedback
Driven by conversation with customers
Hashtag (#) functionality
Excellent platform for public relations
Creates leads and moves traffic to your website
Images are used to promote services and products
Immediate Call-To-Action response
Ability to refine your target demography with categories
Fast-growing social network
Young demographic
Ideal for visual content
Perfect for engaging users
Effortless to set up a brand account
SEO profile of businesses are improved
Allows you to stay current within an industry
Cost-effective
Excellent means to establish credibility
Company info is readily available
Great networking opportunities
More often than not, people just don’t have the interest, know-how or time to invest in social media, but they know they need it. That’s where the experts step in! So if you’re not sure where to start, contact Generator today and let us help you establish your social media presence.
