Top 20 Social Media Benefits for a Business

There are more than 3.80 billion users of Social Media and is proving to be the most powerful thing on the internet. We use social media not only for personal purposes but also to market our business.

As per the data, 50% of small businesses don’t realize the strength of social media. They’re unfamiliar with its benefits and what it can do for the business. They’re missing out on a faster, easier, and most effective way of attracting more customers.

Here are the top 20 social media benefits for a business:

1. Largely Free

It’s free to create your account on social media and post your content. If the quality of your content is great, you will not need any promotion to go that extra mile. But if you want to promote to your target audience, you need to pay for that exposure.

Facebook can promote your business based on your budget. It automatically directs your ad towards the people who might be interested in your content. This means you’ll have a huge ROI and your budget will be used effectively. The same procedure goes on with Twitter and Instagram.

Therefore, social media is mostly free, which acts as a benefit for your business. If you want to advertise, you should. This will make your account look more competent and get good leads and conversions.

2. Boosts Website Traffic

Social media ads and posts can bring traffic to your website innumerably. But how can you persuade your audience to click through the website?

* Share content or blogs from your website and post it on all the social media platforms suitable to your business

* Take part in social chats. Meaning, make use of hashtags to increase your visibility to the audience who might get attracted to your content

* Include your website address in the bio so people who want to know more about you can easily do so with one click

Following all the above steps can help you reach audiences outside your normal customer circle. Adding your website address will let you open your business to a larger audience who are unaware of you.

3. Track Your Competition

One of the major benefits of social media is the power to track your competition. After all, your competition has the same goals (build brand reputation, sell products/services).

So, look into their strategies and data and answer the following questions:

* What are they currently promoting?

* What ads are they running?

* Which of their posts are getting the highest engagements?

* Where are they lacking?

* How is your content strategy different?

* Are you missing out on something that’s content-worthy?

* What are you doing better than them?

Resolve all these questions using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis. You can uncover various strengths and opportunities that lie ahead of you and tackle the weaknesses and threats arising from your competition.

Therefore, doing competitive analysis can benefit and get you ahead of your competition.

4. Interacting and Collaborating

There is a small part of the population that is nearly impossible to connect with. Meaning, it’s difficult to interact with high-profile people who have a huge following. But social media gives you this benefit. Partnering and collaborating with influencers or celebrities and building relationships with them adds value to your brand effectively.

Here are some ways to add value to these connections:

* Backlinks- Boosts SEO

* Shoutouts

* Referral Visits

* Potential business opportunities

* New strategic relationship

* Valuable suppliers

* Strengthening your links to important communities

Therefore, build quality relationships on social media. It will increase your brand awareness and boost sales.

5. Increases Brand Awareness

Gaining brand awareness is one of the most important factors for any business because people buy the brands they recognize. Social media helps you achieve this in the easiest way possible. It can get your brand in front of people who might not even be aware of you.

But how can you build your brand awareness?

Here are a few points to remember:

* Tell your brand’s story- audience connect to real stories faster

* Share your passion through your content

* Show off your brand culture and personality

* Qualities that make your brand unique

* Get sponsors to like and share your page

* Create your hashtag and ask everyone to use it

Each post you share will reach more and more audiences if you follow the above steps. Simply connecting with your potential audience will surely increase your brand awareness and build your brand’s reputation.

6. Better SEO Ranking

Search Engine Optimization is very important for achieving higher page rankings and getting traffic to your website. But what part does social media play in this? Google has clearly stated that social media likes, shares, backlinks, etc. are not direct ranking signals but there is a relation between social media and how Google ranks on the Search Engine Results Page.

By just adding backlinks to your blogs, you can get enough traffic, but it’s the quality that makes Google understand your posts are relevant and they can make it easily visible and shareable.

Here are some ways in which you can provide quality content to rank better through social media, provided your content combines your targeted keywords:

* Blogs

* Infographics

* Case Studies

* Business Information

* Employee Photos

* Brand story

All the above points will make your business profile more interesting and believable. It will give you the benefit of ranking better, which will surely generate positive results for your business, because we all get the results we want on the first page itself. So, our only goal is to be on that page to get enough traffic on our website.

7. Builds Brand Loyalty

One of the major goals of any business is to build brand loyalty. Meaning, developing a strong and loyal customer base. Studies have shown that 62% of the customers are loyal to brands that engage directly through social media. So communicate with your customers because that’s what will make them come to you rather than your competition.

Don’t just introduce your products and run campaigns, engage with your audience as they see these platforms as a base to communicate with you and help them with their queries. One of the best examples could be Apple Products. Why are customers so loyal to them? It’s because of the bond they share and the trust they have for those products.

Building brand loyalty is not costing you any money, so use social media as a platform to connect with them.

8. Gain Insights

Social media has a special tool that will help you understand your customers in depth. This tool gives you the ability to measure conversions based on the posts on various social media platforms that combine perfectly with generating leads for your business.

Here are a few questions that are answered by such tool:

* What are the interests of your customer?

* Which post is generating the highest impressions?

* What time are they most active?

* Which post is not getting enough engagement?

* What is the reach of the brand?

* Which age group is interested in your posts?

You will only see demographic data after you get enough followers. Other than that, you get to see all the data that will help improve your understanding of the audience and their opinions.

Therefore, gaining insights will help you grow your business effectively because you will start posting the content that customers will want to see.

9. Retargeting

Around 70% of the online shopping carts are neglected. It could be because of various reasons, but businesses might lose their potential customers. Why? Because the customer has already visited your website or social media, browsed through your products, selected the ones which they like, and added them to the cart. They just did not complete the last step of purchasing it.

So, there is a tool to target such kinds of customers. Using Facebook Pixel, you can show these potential customers the exact products they have placed in the shopping cart. You re-target them to take the ultimate step.

But how does it work? Retargeting works by keeping a list of people who visit your site and placing “cookies” into their browser. When they visit a social media site, a retargeting service displays the products or services the customer is looking for. This allows businesses to know their customers’ activities beyond just scrolling through your site.

10. Going Viral

Going viral is not a simple task, but social media can make it possible for you. As more and more people like, share, comment on your posts, your content becomes visible to new audiences who might not even know your business. This way of sharing the content can easily reach up to thousands of people engaging with your posts. Example: If I see my friend looking at your article and find it interesting, it will surely incline me to check out other posts. Just this way, the content keeps reaching more and more people.

The beauty of a viral ad is that you can get a lot of attention for less effort, and huge ROI. But remember, your focus shouldn’t be on forcing the ad to get viral.

One of the best ad campaigns that went viral is Always #likeagirl, which aired in 2014. It sends a great message and gives a ton of positive publicity. The hashtag will direct people from social media timelines to social media posts and businesses’ websites. Therefore, going viral is a great option, but don’t force it.

11. Boosts Sales

Social media is one of the best platforms to boost your sales. Over 51% of the marketers claimed that taking time to communicate and answer customers’ queries showed positive results in their sales. The impact you make on them becomes a factor in who they will choose when purchasing a product or service. It not only increases your sales but also builds the credibility of your business.

People use social media to stay connected with their friends and families. They are already interacting, so just add your brand into the mix. The more people like, share, comment on your posts, the better is your visibility. Every blog post, image, or video that you post may lead your customers to take the ultimate step of purchasing the product and eventually increase website traffic.

So, make sure that you optimize your content by sharing interactive posts, commenting, and posting statuses on social media. It personifies you as a brand and will boost conversions.

12. Promote Content

Promoting your content on social media is a great way to showcase your well-researched content, proving your expertise and growing the audience. The most important thing is to be creative.

You need to come up with interesting and unique topics to write in your content. Being creative and telling stories is an effective way to make your posts look less like ads. You also want

to make sure that you’re posting original content.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while doing the content marketing plan:

* Catchy Headlines- Go with the headlines that start with How, What, Why, or Rank based title

* Images- It’s better to come up with your images. If you’re downloading it online, mention the source.

* Videos- Adding videos to your content can make it more interesting and boosts engagement.

* Infographics- These can make or break your content. Adding infographics of your own receives positive comments from the audience.

* Time of the post- check what time is your audience most active and post it and that time only.

* Proper Structure (if an article)- Having a proper structure of Introduction – Body – Conclusion is very important for your audience to understand the content in depth.

13. Customer Services

The primary goal of any business is to deliver the best quality customer service possible and doing everything in its power to give the best experience. Whatever the comment is, whether good or bad, the way you reply to those comments matters. Unlike emails and phone calls, providing support through social media saves you money and time. Meaning answering queries

through social media is quick and to the point.

A sound investment in customer service not only builds meaningful relationships but also raises the brand’s reputation. It helps you listen to feedback or address specific concerns, easily. Businesses should use this amazing opportunity to build their brand as a true consumer-first operation that ultimately grows its customer base.

The best example to explain this is Netflix. You can see them replying to everyone, let it be good or bad. They know how to tackle the audience and come up with alternative ways to reply to them every single time.

14. Establish Your Brand As a Thought Leader

No matter which industry you’re in, social media offers you to establish yourself as a thought leader. Meaning, a go-to person for information related to your niche. Thought Leadership is a great way to build trust with your customer. In fact, 80% of the buyers said that it builds trust and works best for B2B marketers.

But how can you establish yourself as an expert in your niche?

* Post meaningful and well-written content

* Be communicative

* Connect with your audience

* Answer to their queries

* Promote your authority

There is no other way. It requires work that some online networking tools can accompany. And yes, be sure to use all social media platforms and build your online presence. Being able to connect with your audience creates a relationship that they’ll value, allowing you to become an expert in your field.

15. Discover industry trends

Social media is a goldmine to find out industry trends. If you want to know what a brand is doing well and what isn’t working out for them, this is the right platform as all of it is out there in the open. How? We’re able to see real-time conversations between consumers and brands. These conversations can clue you in on what the customers like about your product, and their

concerns.

But what’s the best part? You can look at your target audience’s activities and come up with real-time solutions and products that customers will buzz about. You’ll know what type of

the content they’re looking for.

Best way to know the trends would be by following various hashtags. They highlight all the contents that come not only from normal people but also from influencers and celebrities.

Example: #ootd (Outfit of the day). This hashtag has been going around for a very long time. You can see everyone adding this hashtag to the outfits they wear for that day. Celebrities, influencers, everyone else makes use of this. Advantage? If you’re a part of the fashion industry, you’ll easily know the trends in your niche just by following this hashtag. You can also come with new ideas that can make all the difference for your brand.

16. Crowdsourcing of Ideas

User-Generated Content and Crowdsourced Content isn’t just free, it is unique and could make all the difference. The larger the audience, the more impact is the content on the

potential customers.

But how are the brands doing it? Most of them ask people to post their content with specific brand-related hashtags to get featured. So, the brand isn’t just receiving content, but also sharing its content through its customers across all social media platforms. Do you see what’s happening? They’re increasing their reach just by asking people to use hashtags.

Here are two key ways to source your content on social media:

* Source ideas- Give people what they want. Engage with them to know their likes and dislikes and come up with new ideas for the content. It’s a great way to make them buzz around with the content you create.

* Source material for the posts- Create a contest. Because who doesn’t get excited about it? Getting your followers involved can build curiosity about your brand while also providing you with enough content to post.

17. Humanizing

Studies have found that more than half of the customers do not trust a brand until they get actual proof of people using that product. So how can a brand keep its promises to provide the customers with the best products? Just show the human side of your brand. The ability to create a real human connection can build meaningful relationships.

Here are a few ways you can humanize your brand:

* Introduce your followers to the people who make up your company (employees)

* Showcase how existing customers are using it

* Make a video of testimonials

* A video of features of your products with a person using it

This approach will surely drive more engagements and ultimately benefit your business.

The best example would be Samsung. They showcase many ads on the phone they’ll be launching. It not just includes the features of the product, but also shows how a human is using and benefiting from it.

18. Establishes Brand Authority

Brand Authority means your business is a trusted source of information for your niche. Establishing brand authority directly relates to content marketing. The more you use social media to post relevant content, the more search engines will pick up on your authority over the niche. This can make you the go-to person when anyone is searching for information about your niche and eventually increase website traffic.

So, how can you build this authority? Just communicate with your customers. Reply to all their comments, whether positive or negative. It makes you appear more credible.

Regularly interacting with customers will make them believe you care for them and are available to answer all their queries. This way, satisfied customers will spread words about your products and how they benefited from them. Eventually, you can see unknown visitors coming along your page and engaging with it.

Once you have enough satisfied customers, you can let them do the advertising. They will surely start recommending you and not your competitors whenever in need of any products you sell.

19. Tell your Brand’s story

Every person or a business has a story. Meaning, how they came up with the business idea? Who are the people who made it possible? As emotional people, we connect with such posts.

So use social media to share your brand’s vision, mission, and values. It can have a great impact on your image and reputation.

The posts do not have to go viral or need intensive thinking. Make it simple and powerful. Just post everyday stories of how your brand will still be impactful and purchase-worthy.

The best example would be Dove. The Real Beauty Campaign showcased women embracing their curves and different stages of life. Women from everywhere could relate to this, and it spoke volumes. They also used genuine people and not models, which made it more original and trustworthy.

Therefore, standing up to your brand’s value, come up with ideas that will inspire the people, and make connections with your brand.

20. Helps in Reputation Management

Whether or not you’re on social media, people are already talking about you. To get the most benefits out of it, use social listening tools to detect anytime your brand is mentioned and what your customers have to say. You can discover every word that associates with your brand through the tools, whether good or bad.

But how to reply to the comments? If someone is praising your brand, show your appreciation and thank them. If you see negative comments, don’t ignore them. Rather, reply to them politely and solve the issue. You simply need to apologize and support them with all the necessities. 

Doing this will help build your brand’s reputation and ultimately increase your chances of conversions.

Therefore, it is clear from all the above points how social media benefits a business. You can easily track your competition, Increase website traffic, build brand reputation, and what not?

Social media will help you reach your goals and generate a huge ROI.

So, if you don’t have an account, create it right now. Fill out all the information and begin posting content. With consistent updates, you will start seeing your strategy working and your business growing.