Using the Benefits of Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Brand
June 15th, 2021
Let’s be real–without a presence on social media, your brand will struggle to expand and acquire new customers. It’s almost unthinkable that any brand would hesitate before taking advantage of all the great features social media has to offer. But you already know this.
Social media marketing is the most efficient and effective way to make your brand accessible to nearly half the global population.
Here are some ways social media marketing magnifies your brand’s social presence:
- Learn about your customers: There’s a tremendous amount of data collected by all the social media platforms on your target consumers. Not only is that data accessible to your brand, but it can also tell you exactly what your consumers are looking for and the best way to reach them. People like to buy from brands they want and relate to.
- Become an industry leader: Trust and authority. Two essential things a brand needs to develop to continue to expand. People want to buy from brands that are familiar and honest. With social media, there are opportunities to become a thought leader in your industry. Staking your claim as an authoritative source will encourage customers to go to you first.
- Identify leads: Almost all social networks now offer advertising formats designed to collect leads. They work with brands to encourage website and social media traffic increases. Potential consumers can easily express interest in your products and brand. It is essential to leverage social media to drive lead generation.
- Sell more: Social accounts are significant additions to include in your sales funnel. Social media is already hugely important for eCommerce and product search. Make sure you align your sales goals with your social marketing strategy.
- Stalk the competition: What are people saying about your competitors? It has never been easier to find out! Keeping an eye on other brands in your industry means that you will be aware when the competition is running promotions, releasing new data reports, or launching a new product.
Social media is one of the best tools for a brand’s marketing team, and it doesn’t cost much to get started–your brand can pick up a handle and jump on Instagram in 10 minutes. Of course, you will need to consider investing in content creation and copywriters. But what else is a marketing budget for? The ROI from effective social media campaigns will make any CFO smile.
There are many ways to streamline your campaign with social media–from targeted advertising to reputation management to UGC (user-generated content). However, as a busy brand looking to grow, I want to get right to why we are here.
How do you leverage these benefits for your brand?
Ok, now that you have a clearer idea of the benefits of social media marketing, you need to know how to use those benefits to encourage significant growth for your brand.
Customer Data
You have all this data: Now what? Connecting to customers and potential customers can be difficult, no matter how good your product is. However, it gets a little easier with the 360-degree views of a customer you receive from social data. Not only do you know their basic demographics, you know what their purchasing habits are, where they are most likely to check for reviews, and the best time to post on their feed is.
The data allows you to streamline and hone your entire marketing strategy around genuine personas from real customers. Also, the more you know your customers, the more likely you can craft content that is relatable to them and draws them to your brand and community.
Thought Leader
When your brand establishes itself as a thought leader, you become the go-to source for information and updates related to your chosen niche. Use thought leadership in building consumer trust. More than 80% of consumers said thought leadership builds trust. The current business landscape rewards thought leaders with cross-promotion across multiple platforms. Write thoughtful blogs or create engaging content that aims to educate an audience about your industry, even if it’s not necessarily exactly what you do.
Lead Generation
With social networks offering advertising formats specifically designed to collect leads, it has never been easier to connect brands with customers. Through social media, it is simple for a potential customer to express interest in the brand. Any interaction on a post is engagement, and engagement with a brand means a potential lead. Capitalizing on this capability is a MUST.
Increase in Sales
Who doesn’t want more sales? Social selling allows your marketing and sales team the opportunity to not only contact and find potential leads but also engage and develop a relationship with them. When your social accounts are consistently active and engaging, your brand will remain in those tricky algorithms and at the top of your customers’ minds. There are tons of ways to sell on social media platforms in new, dynamic, and memorable ways.
View of the Competition
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer–that’s how the saying goes, right? As a brand, you can get clever when it comes to using this one. Just like you, your competition’s brand most likely has a social presence. Take a look. How are they handling customer complaints? Should you take a page out of their book? Or, perhaps, they are not handling it all that well–maybe they wait long enough to handle complaints for your brand to take a step in and offer a different solution. By tracking social mentions of the competition, you may get an insight into pain points with their products that you could then address within your own marketing.
Lift Your Brand to New Heights
We do all of this and more at Nowadays.
But we like to take it one step further–we don’t want your brand just to be popular. We want your customers to not only feel like they can’t live without you but root for your success. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Seriously, influencer and social marketing aren’t just fluff anymore–turn your marketing efforts into a sales channel and make it a key part of your strategy. It has always been a challenge for marketers to prove the return on investment. With social media marketing, the proof is in your everyday successful interactions with customers. They even write the evidence down and send it as a message: “We love your brand,” “Never buying from anyone else,” “I need more of your stuff!”—all social proof for how badass your brand really is.
You’re trying to tell the world you’re a rock star–do a campaign with Nowadays, and we can show the world that’s exactly what you are.
Sources:
The True Value of Thought Leadership | LinkedIn Marketing Blog