When used correctly, social media can help to drive more people to your website, increase brand awareness, and generate mountains of sales.
It can also hurt your brand’s reputation when not used correctly as well.
If you’re not sure how social media can help to expand your brand, this article is for you.
Below, we’re going to share with you 3 ways social media can play a big role in making your brand known to over 3.6 billion people who are already active on different social channels across the globe.
Remember that most of these people are looking to engage with brands like yours.
Whether small or big, your business needs to be findable online. To connect with potential customers, educate them about your products or services for them to decide whether or not to buy from you.
Why use social media for business?
Almost every business out there has one or two social accounts.
Below, we take a look at how social media can expand your brand in the following ways.
- Building brand awareness and growth
- Through content creation and distribution
- Through advertising
So without further ado, let’s get rolling.
How Social Media Can Help Maximize Growth
There are several ways social media can help build brand awareness and growth.
They include:
1. Generate website traffic
Social media is a free source of website traffic to your online business. Close to 78% of small businesses use different social networks to increase their website traffic.
This could include sharing of posts, short videos, etc.
However, there is a trick.
A 2017 study by one of the best assignment help companies in the UK found that 63% of brands are unable to drive traffic and leads.
So how do you increase traffic to your website?
First, you need to create a profile for your brand on relevant networks (preferably Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube). You don’t need them all though. You can choose two or three that are relevant to your brand.
You also need to build a strong online presence on your chosen platforms.
Besides, you need to share great content from your website tailored to each platform to attract more readers to your posts.
Remember that your followers on Instagram aren’t the same as those for LinkedIn; hence the need to customize content for each platform.
Sharing interesting and entertaining content on social media will help people discover and learn more about your online business.
Once they land on your website or blog, make it easy for them to share your content by placing share buttons at specific areas on your website as well.
2. Drive leads
Lead generation is also another important benefit of social media for business.
A 2017 industry report by Social Media Examiner suggests that 65% of small businesses use social media to generate leads.
Besides, most platforms offer brands different ways of generating leads.
For instance, both Facebook and LinkedIn allow users to use lead ads to increase leads.
Generating qualified leads on social networks isn’t a walk in the park though.
But it’s possible.
To generate qualified leads, you need to promote gated content on your preferred platforms.
As stated earlier, you need to share content that’s customized for each channel and tailored to your specific followers.
This involves writing content for your target readers and including a call to action that evokes a sense of urgency.
You also need to design visually appealing graphics to add to your posts so you can attract people.
3. Increase sales
With billions of people using social media today, it’s no doubt that social selling can be lucrative.
Besides, 52% of marketers agree that social media has a positive impact on their company’s revenue and sales.
So if you’re not using social media to promote your brand then you’re doing it a disservice.
Whether you’re selling table mats or farm produce or you’re promoting your services, social media provides you with an avenue where you can connect with customers and sell your products and services.
4. Social media promotes word of mouth marketing
Social media allows you to partner with influencers who can promote your brand and build awareness, credibility, and generate more sales.
This is backed by studies that suggest that word of mouth drives close to 50% of purchase decisions.
But that’s not all.
Another study has shown that 72% of customers trust online reviews in the same way as personal recommendations from friends or family.
When you partner with influencers, you attract the attention of the huge following these individuals have already accumulated.
To benefit from social media with influencer marketing, you need to offer an incentive such as a free product or cut down the price of products by a certain percent to allow these influencers to promote your brand.
5. Build brand awareness
Almost half of the world’s population is on social media, but perhaps only a few of these users are aware of your brand.
Fortunately, social media lets you connect and engage with tens of thousands of people daily.
It’s the best tool to reach new and interested potential customers.
And if you thought that social media users only follow brands they already know, then you’re wrong. 60% of Instagram users say they use the platform to discover new products.
6. Establish your brand as an authority in your industry
You can establish your brand as a thought leader through the sharing of great and well-researched content around your industry on social media.
People aren’t only on social media for fun.
Some users are looking to learn more about a topic they are interested in.
You can become a go-to source for information on relevant topics in your niche.
7. Connect with your audience at all times
A Pew Research Center report suggests that social media users access their accounts at least once per day.
When you share interesting and informative social media posts, you will be able to connect with your fans and followers every time they log into their accounts hence staying on top of their minds.
Let’s talk about the second way social media can help to expand your brand.
Content creation and distribution
When it comes to content creation and distribution, the benefits of social media for business are obvious. You can reach tens of thousands of people with your content with a click of a button.
Here is how you can expand your brand through content creation aunsnd distribution.
8. Social media increases brand reach
Social media is everywhere. When you use your preferred channels correctly, you make your brand known to a bigger audience.
90% of marketers agree that social media increases business exposure, and 75% have reported a huge increase in website traffic.
Social media platforms are becoming useful avenues for people to learn more about brands. In fact, 54% of users come to social media to research products.
Achieving brand exposure is no easy thing though. You need to learn how to do it the right way.
Here are a few tips to increase your brand reach on social media.
- Identify your target audience: First things first, before you create your accounts, ensure your target audience is on your preferred platforms. Otherwise, you’ll waste your time creating a company profile on Twitter when your followers are on Facebook.
- Grab your followers’ attention: This is where the use of attractive visuals comes into play. Remember that your competitors are already doing it. So you want to attract the attention of your audience with eye-catchy visuals along with content to generate engagement as well.
- Be active on social media: To get people talking about your brand, you need to initiate interesting conversations and tag or mention other people.
- Measure success: After doing all the above, you want to measure your efforts. This will help you to know whether you’re achieving your goals or you need to change your strategies.
9. Social media for content promotion
Social media allows brands to get their valuable content in front of a bigger audience. This helps brands to prove their expertise and grow their audience.
Remember that while it is possible to increase brand awareness on social media through content promotion, you must work with a plan.
10. Exposure to new audiences
With social media, it’s possible to go viral, although it’s not easy.
When you share interesting content that resonates with the interests of your followers, people will like, comment, or share your social posts. This way, your brand gets exposed to a new audience (friends of your friends and followers).
As more people keep on sharing your posts with their friends, your content goes viral hence generating thousands of shares and comments.
The good news is that the more likes, comments, or shares your content attracts the more you build brand consciousness and credibility.
11. Social media as a source of content for your brand
You can also source content for your brand on social media.
Here is how to do it:
- Get content ideas: Here, you can pay attention to the type of information your target readers are looking for through social listening. You can also ask your followers directly to know what content they want. This will help you get a ton of ideas so you can create posts that people will read and share.
- Source user-generated content- UGC: You don’t always have to share your own content. You can also source user-generated content to share with your target audience by using hashtags or running contests. Take a look at how the #wanderlustcontest hashtag by National Geographic generated over 60k posts.
Social Media for Advertising
Another way social media can play a big role in expanding your brand is through advertising.
You can achieve this through:
12. Targeted advertising
Social ads offer an affordable way to make your brand known to many people.
You can also use these ads to reach people who are interested in your products which could help to save the money you could lose by targeting everyone.
Of course, when you target the right audience, you increase the chances of generating sales.
A 2018 report suggests that savvy marketers spent two times the budget of appearing on newspaper ads on ad targeting.
The good thing about ad targeting is that you target people based on their geographical location, online behaviors, demographics, or even language.
This helps to create messages customized for different groups of people. You also pay for the number of viewers you want to reach, thus it’s inexpensive.
13. Retargeting
70% of online purchasers don’t complete the checkout process.
These are customers who have shown interest in your products but due to unknown circumstances, they abandon the cart along the process.
And because they have discovered your website, gone through your products, and made a decision, you can retarget them with ads.
Often, digital shoppers abandon shopping carts for various reasons. However, you shouldn’t leave them to go away just like that.
You can track these people using the Facebook Pixel tool and show them ads for the exact products they abandoned on your website.
Craftsy used Facebook ads to promote products to people who had already visited their website. Their effort increased revenue by 33%.
Over to you
Is your brand already on social media?
What’s your experience?
Remember that if your brand isn’t on social media, your competitors are already doing social media.
And as you have seen, there are many benefits of using social media for business.
Start using social media and enjoy the following benefits:
- Drive website traffic
- Drive leads
- Increase sales
- Take advantage of word of mouth marketing
- Increase brand reach
- Promote your content to a bigger audience
- Exposure to new audiences
- Source interesting content for your brand
- Targeted advertising
- Retargeting
- Build brand awareness
- Establish your brand as an authority in your industry
- Connect with your audience at all times.
Author Bio:
Charlie Svensson is a social media consultant and digital marketing expert with over 7 years of experience. Besides, he also offers the best paper writing service in the UK. Charlie was recognized as one of the best essay writers of 2020. He also writes content around the topics of social media, SEO, blogging, and marketing.
