7 Reasons Why Social Media is Essential For Your Business
According to Brandwatch, social media has attracted more than 3.4 billion people globally (up 9.1% year on year). And those persons on social media on average have some 7.6 social media accounts. As a small example of the popularity of social media, Facebook has more than 2.3 billion users, Instagram 1 billion users, LinkedIn 610 million users, Pinterest 265 million users, Twitter 330 million users.
In today’s highly competitive markets, I think you’ll agree that these are powerful numbers that businesses simply cannot afford to ignore. You can rest assured that your competitors are already utilising social media in their marketing. If by some chance your primary competitors has not yet made the move to social media, then that is even more reason why you should be capitalising on social media as this will surely give you an edge over those competitors.
If you are a blogger seeking to utilise social media to help grow your business, I want to give you a shout out as the content shared in this article is of particular importance to you.
#1: Boost Your Search Engine Ranking And Gain More Traffic
Search engines employ a huge myriad of algorithms to determine the importance and relevance of the content on your website or blog when responding to users search requests. Social signals play a strong role in determining the importance of your website or blog content. Comments, shares and retweets of your content are strong indicators that your content offers value to your audience and are therefore more likely to be deemed worthy of being reference by search engines.
Social Media Business Pages such as a Facebook Page or a LinkedIn Page for your business can show up in search engine results providing your brand with an increased search engine presence. A strong social media presence across multiple social media channels is also a strong indication to the search engines that your brand is credible and trustworthy. These social signals all important factors which help to increase your organic search engine ranking.
#2: Increase Your Brand Recognition And Loyalty
A strong social media presence with multiple touch points allows you to syndicate your quality content to a wider audience. And every opportunity to increase your visibility through your content is an opportunity to share your brand’s voice, ethos and personality.
People like to buy from people they know like and trust! Social media in effect allows your brand to almost appear like a person allowing your brand’s voice to reach a wide audience, an audience which over time can learn to like and build trust in your brand.
Syndicating your brand’s content across multiple social media channels helps your audience to gain a better understanding of your brand and what your band stands for. This in turn will help to increase your customers and potential customers engagement with your brand. By frequently connecting with your audience, your brand will remain top of mind with your followers.
#3: Allows Your Brand to Gain More Customers
Every image, video, comment or blog post you share on social media provides a chance for an interaction, and every interaction could lead to a visit to your website or blog which could lead to a conversion. Whilst not every interaction with your brand will result in a conversion, every positive experience with your brand increases the likelihood of a future conversion.
Social media allows existing customers to share their experiences of a brand or a brands products providing social proof to others who may then follow through resulting in further conversions.
#4: Increase Your Inbound Website Traffic
For each social media account you create for your brand, you’re effectively creating another route back to your site. And every piece of content you share on each social site is another opportunity to gain new visitors who you may not otherwise be able to reach. Contrast this with not having any social media presence! The only people coming to your website would likely be individuals who are either already aware of your brand or individuals searching for keywords in a search engine.
The more social media profiles you create and share your brand’s content to, the more visitors you are likely to get back to your website. And more visitors generally means more leads and potentially more conversions.
#5: Establish Your Brand As An Authority And Thought Leader
By consistently publishing quality and original content across social media, you are able to demonstrate your expertise to your audience and establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry. This is also a great way to establish and build credibility and trust with your audience.
The more value you provide to your audience with the content you are sharing, the more effective you become in positioning your brand as an authority. When your valuable content is being shared and positive comments are being made, this further helps to build the authority of your brand.
More information on the crucial importance of branding can be found in this post.
#6: Helps Your Brand To Connect With Other Thought Leaders In Your Industry
Since your customers are on social media, it is the perfect medium to develop awareness of your brand and your leadership across a wide audience.
By providing valuable information and value to your audience across social media, other thought leaders in your industry are more likely to become aware of your business and want to connect and collaborate with your brand. Such leaders are likely to have a large following, so this in itself can be a valuable route to increasing your reach almost overnight. So since your brand will potentially gain exposure to their audience, developing a relationship with other though leaders is a great route to driving your brand forward.
#7: Provides Access To A Global Market
The internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to reach a global market at very low cost. Social Media allows your brand to easily connect with and converse with your audience on the other side of the globe.
No other marketing medium can afford a brand to reach such a wide market at such a low costs! These benefits can potentially allow brands to reduce their traditional marketing costs.
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