The Power of Social Media
Social Media For Small Business. Introduction
Social media is essential to your business because it helps improve marketplace brand awareness, brand loyalty, leading to healthier customer satisfaction. Customers are the backbone of every business, and the power that social media has is that it forces necessary change. According to Business Insider, over 3.96 billion people worldwide use social media, and 21% of consumers are likely to buy from brands they can reach on social media.
According to the Statista research department, over 91% of United States businesses use social media for marketing purposes, and that number is growing rapidly. In addition, 90% of their marketers say using social media has increased their business exposure, and 75% say they’ve increased traffic (Galov, 2021).
Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are the top three social media platform for any businesses, and the three main reasons for their usage are as follows:
- Customer Optimization
- Cost-effectiveness
- Customer Engagement
Customer Optimization
In a 2016 Sproutsocial survey, 58% of consumers were reported to be more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media. According to a review, 42 blog posts by Nick Galov, 21% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands they can reach on social media. I myself use social media to shop for various products of interest because it’s easy, fast, and convenient.
With the use of social media, your brand can gain exposure to millions of customers worldwide. In addition, the tools it features will help your customers shop easier leading to growth in your sales and revenues. For instance, Facebook and Instagram introduced “Shops,” which we highly recommend using to sell your products directly from your page without having to redirect customers to your website. With Shops, you can easily set up a single integrated online store for your customers to access on both Facebook and Instagram. You will also have access to flexible advertising tools that will allow you to target a specific audience and select an ad delivery optimization that matches your business goals, such as conversions or landing page views.
Using social media for businesses will help companies:
- Increase business exposure
- Promote brand awareness and loyalty
- Leverage community engagement and website clicks
- Maximize sales, revenues, and profits
Cost-Effectiveness
Social media marketing is possibly the most cost-efficient aspect of advertising strategy. It is free to register and sign up for the three different social media platforms; Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which have approximately 5 billion monthly online users worldwide.
Capitalizing in social media marketing can help grow both your retail store business clientele and social network. For example, Cisco launched a new router and used only social media to spread the word, saving them more than $100,000, according to Forbes, 2021.
Social media channels allow you to perform these actions for free:
— - Alert customers about sales promotions and company information update — - Connect retail store outlets with brand influencers and other brands in the retail industry.
— - Provide customer support on goods and services, and over 689 million people are using survey feedback.
Social media marketing is a solid strategy you can employ to help grow your business and make customers aware of any undertaking promotional activities.
Customer Engagement
While most brands want to increase the size of their audience, they often fail to increase their social media engagement. When you engage with your followers on social media, you can turn them from fans into customers. In addition, the time you devote to building relationships with your audience can lead to a higher number of sales, an increase in customer loyalty, and higher positive reviews.
Organic Vs. Inorganic Followers: If you want to increase social media engagement on your pages, you’ll need to grow your followers. Organic followers are real followers, while Inorganic followers are followers you bought. Therefore, the more real followers (organic followers) you have, the more engagement you’re likely to receive.
The most common and expensive way to grow your followers is to spend money on advertising. You can also buy ads to increase your followers on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. While you will grow your followers, they might not have the same level of commitment as someone who discovered your brand through an amazing product ad.
If you are starting or using social media, you don’t need to abandon your current social media pages or start over from scratch. Instead, you need to consider ways to set your posts up for greater engagement.
How to increase engagement on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok:
Tap into perfect post times: According to sproutsocial, the more engagement a post receives, the more likely it is for the social media algorithm to reward it with reach. Figure (right) describes the best time to post on Facebook and Instagram daily.
Focus on Fan-centric content: Because you’re running a TikTok page for a restaurant doesn’t mean you should exclusively post content related to foods only. Examples include pop culture events (i.e., Spider-Man: Far from home), Fascinating facts or stats (i.e., the best place for work productivity: office or home), memes, and humorous content.
Analyze popular posts and prioritize response: The key to increasing customer engagement is to look inward. Recreate your most popular content. Improving your Facebook page engagement isn’t a “one and done” affair. If someone takes the time to comment on your content, you should return the favor yourself.
Leverage Your Biggest Advocates:
Instead of solely relying on your brand page to share your latest content, why not ask your employees to do some of the heavy lifting? The best part is that employees are ready and willing to share your content. Data shows that 70% of people use social media at work. In addition, people are 16x more likely to read a post from a friend (i.e., your employees) than from a brand.
Conclusion
Because of digital platforms like Tiktok, Facebook, and Instagram, small businesses are more likely to survive even during the pandemic. Understanding the customer optimization process and cost-effectiveness strategies to increase customer engagement will more likely allow your business to thrive. If you are looking to expand your brand, take advantage of the social media platform to start your business and increase your engagement.
References
Dobrilova, T. (2021, March 29). 36 Stunning Facebook Statistics to Share in 2021. Retrieved from Review 42: https://review42.com/resources/facebook- statistics/
Galov, N. (2021, February 26). Latest Social Media Marketing Statistics in 2020 Retrieved from Review 42: https://review42.com/resources/social-media- marketing statistics/#:~:text=At%20least%2091%25%20of%20US,social%20media%20for%20 marketing%20purposes.
Global Social Media Stats — DataReportal — Global Digital Insights. DataReportal. (2021, April 17). https://datareportal.com/social-media-users.
Jenn Chen. (2021, February 8). What is influencer marketing: How to develop your strategy. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/influencer- marketing/.
Marketing Insider Group. (2018, August 9). Retrieved from Marketing Insider Group: https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/why-social- media-is-important-for-business-marketing/
McCarthy, J. (2015, April 24). The Drum. Retrieved from The Drum: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/04/24/facebook-influences-over-half- shoppers-says-DigitasLBi-s-connected-commerce-report
Mohsin, M. (2021, February 16). 10 TikTok Statistics You Need to Know in 2021 [March data]. Retrieved from OBERLO: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok- statistics#:~:text=TikTok%20has%20689%20million%20monthly%20active%20u sers%20worldwide.&text=62%20percent%20of%20TikTok%20users%20in%20th e%20US%20are%20between,the%20app’s%20total%20global%20downloads.
Olenski, S. (2021, April 16). 4 Ways To Save Money On Marketing. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2016/01/20/4-ways-to-save- money-on-marketing/?sh=1fea387732fb.
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