The world changes constantly and the way customers engage with your company changes with it. Yesterday email was the best way to talk to your customers. Today social media has grown into a powerful engagement tool that you can’t ignore.
More than ever before, customers are doing their research before contacting a potential vendor. Your sales team isn’t hearing from them until they are nearly ready to buy. Inbound marketing is all about offering valuable information about how you can solve their problems where they can easily find it. That is where social media marketing comes into play.
One thing before you go social; do your research. Find out what platforms your ideal customer hangs out in the social mediasphere so you know where to create your presence.
1) Social Provides Brand Exposure
Social media is the new place to generate awareness of your business. But you don’t do it by putting up a billboard; you use the social network as a second repository of information about how your company can help its customers.
By creating a Facebook, Google+, and/or LinkedIn company page you build another home for your content. These networks and others like Twitter offer you a way to promote your content to the people who are interested in it.
2) Social Does Have ROI
White Glove Social Media published a study showing how a business gained a 1,300% increase in revenue by engaging on Pinterest, one of the latest networks to debut. According to the study, Pinterest engagement outperformed paid search campaigns and targeted Facebook ads the company had already tried.
Consider that social media marketing doesn’t necessarily mean paying for ads on the network. Once you build a presence you only need to invest in maintaining it and using it as another way of promoting your business, offers, and content. Those who engage with your company through your social media presence are doing so because they are interested in what you have. They are self-qualifying in a way that customers who are cold-called could never be.
NextWeb has further information on large companies, like Cisco, saving marketing dollars by promoting new products entirely through social media and online marketing. Rather than spend the money to fly executives in to see the product, Cisco utilized Second Life to stage a pre-launch party. Needless to say, this was a huge savings.
3) Social Drives Website Traffic
Social networks provide ad space, page space, and tools to help you connect new customers to your website. Calls to action leading to landing pages are just as helpful through social as through email or other methods of pulling in traffic. In fact, unlike email, social pages show up in search engines, doubling the presence of that CTA.
As an example, you can share a special offer on your Facebook page that links to a landing page on your website. On that same Facebook page you can place content relating to your industry, the city your business is in, or other related information. On Twitter you can also provide links to special offers or promote content residing on your website. LinkedIn can be a place to advertise jobs and company updates. These in turn link back to your website.
4) Social Media Is Perfect for Customer Engagement
Social media is the place to go to monitor trends and listen to what your prospective and current customers have to say about your company, products, or services. Many people turn to social media to voice feedback (compliments and complaints) and opinions about specific businesses.
If you have an account you can interact with those who mention you. This places a human face on your company and shows people you, the CEO, are willing to get to know them. It also gives them a sense of knowing who they are paying money to.
5) Like It or Not, Social Is Here to Stay
Social media is here, your competition and your customers are on it, and you need to be there too. You can’t afford not to be seen here. Social media is another battleground for customer attention and if you are missing in action the other side will win.
Social media has grown from being a college kid’s application for communicating with the crowd to another channel capable of reaching millions of people. And the people you reach on social will be those who are already looking for your solution. Unlike a television ad that plays no matter the show or audience, social media interactions can be targeted only to those who would be interested in the first place.
Social media is no more flash-in-the-pan than websites or email. It has been around long enough for data to be gathered and analyzed for its impact on marketing and sales. The analyses are showing clear return on investment as well as numerous soft returns such as creating a more human environment. Social media is size-agnostic; a small company has just as much power as a larger one.
The playing field is larger and leveler than ever. Your presence is required. Your customers demand to choose the way they interact with you so don’t lose out by narrowing their choices. Increase your brand exposure, customer engagement, and website traffic by investing in social media.
