Social media has opened up an astounding number of ways to stay connected, and these are the top reasons why you should use social media for your business.
1. You Stay Visible
With everyone and their brother currently using social media to promote their brand, it’s important for any business to take advantage of the visibility social media allows you to have. By constantly updating your social media accounts you stay visible, connect with potential customers and remain in the forefront of someone’s mind when you’re constantly working on creating a visible brand.
With that being said, you need to think of ways to connect to your customer base in order to remain a visible brand. For example, you can share your company’s story in order to help other social media users feel connected to you and invested in your success. You can also highlight a product or service that you offer in a casual way, getting the word out about your company and what they offer without being too “promotional.” There are numerous ways to stay visible as a business using social media; it’s simply a matter of getting out there and connecting with people.
2. It Helps with Customer Retention
Any business will benefit from customer retention, and social media allows you to do just that. You can direct consumers to your Facebook page and Twitter account via your regular business website or blog, giving customers an easy way to follow your business and stay updated on the latest company news, product offerings and the like.
Additionally, social media allows you to connect with your customers in a way that makes them already feel like they know you, especially if you share your personal stories and anecdotes about your business. In this way, they are more likely to make a purchase via social media without a lot of sales pitches needed.
3. Customer Service is Easier and Quicker
So many people use social media that many of them choose to engage with businesses regularly in this way. Not only is it easier than being put on hold for hours via a telephone, but it’s a lot quicker as well. Any time a customer has a question, a problem or simply wants to compliment your business on a job well done, they can do so quickly and efficiently using social media. In turn, your company can respond to all customer inquiries just as fast.
By using social media to improve your customer service, this also helps with customer retention. As you can see, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t be using social media to help connect with your customer base!
4. It Can Increase Search Engine Rankings
Facebook and Twitter rank among the highest when it comes to social media sites, so make sure to update those frequently if you want to increase your search engine rankings for your business. Will this happen overnight? Likely not, but with frequent updates and staying on top of your customer base, you will be directing targeted traffic back to your website and helping your business rank higher in search engines.
You can also ask your current customers to post reviews about your business on popular review sites such as Yelp; the more reviews your business has, the more people are talking about it and getting the word out. Of course, it’s important to search frequently for what is being said about you, so you can also stay on top of any negative reviews that may be posted that you need to address.
5. By Golly… It’s Free
As far as a cost-effective form of advertising goes, using social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are your best bet – because they are all free! By signing up for accounts with these social media sites, you can begin advertising and promoting your brand and products/services right away, without spending a dime on other online advertising methods.
There really isn’t a reason you shouldn’t be using social media for your business, especially when it allows you to connect with customers on a deeper level and help you grow your brand quickly, efficiently and cheaply. Within a few moments, your brand can have a visible presence in social media and will only continue to grow if you stay on top of it for the long-term.
Good post Brian. On number four – if the title is “increase search engine rankings” I think it is important to mention participating on Google Plus.
For getting reviews posted – be careful about this. For instance, Trip Advisor has a rule that says you cannot request a review. So understand what you can say and how you can say it before you put it in writing.
On number 5. Yes it’s free and easy to get started but make sure you are going to respond to current and potential customers/client there. A one way unmonitored feed can be damaging to your brand. Social media marketing needs to be social.
Great input Linda, and thanks for chiming in. I personally use Tweetdeck for overseeing my Twitter use – as I have a column that shows any @studiopress replies. This way I don’t miss anything that comes through which might be positive (or negative) feedback from customers. As long as I’m online, I can see these tweets as they come in and address them within minutes of people sending them.
I also use Tweetdeck to manage my Twitter accounts, that’s great tool.
Hey! I have used both, TweetDeck doesn’t support scheduled tweets, so HootSuite comes in pretty handy as far as this concerned. Also HootSuite lets you add multiple users and control which accounts they can update So currently using HootSuite, and pretty satisfied with it!
I’m using TweetDeck and it has scheduled tweets – which version are you using?
Hootsuite also has a column to track mentions. I like Boxcar on my iPhone for notifications. Hootsuite also has scheduled tweets. Those are sometimes useful but I try to do most of my tweeting real time.
#5 is reason enough for anyone to jump on the social media train (if they haven’t already) Do a search for pretty much any major brand and what comes up? Always at least one social media account. We use Hootsuite to make it easy to stay updated – just like your #1 tip – if you don’t keep up on the updates your competitor will
Brian uses Tweetdeck , you use Hootsuite and I use MarketMeSuite.
I did take a quick look at Tweetdeck, but I’ve never tried Hootsuite.
Might give it a go.
More solid advice Jessica and you’re completely spot on with your comment “if you don’t keep up on the updates your competitor will.”
Good stuff, and thanks for dropping by again!
“It Can Increase Search Engine Rankings”
I published a post recently and found that I was on the first page of the SERPS almost instantly.
Google was picking up the text in my twitter feed and obviously ranking the post.
I’ve read a few articles saying that a twitter feed is a waste of real estate, but it doesn’t look that way to me.
I love the #4 point, social media can increase search engine rankings, that’s why I saw many bloggers who considered blogging is online business always use social network as the method to promote their blog/product. Nice post, Brian
Since everything is all over the Internet and we can do almost everything using social media or networking sites, it’ll be easier to connect with other clients and customers. This strategy also works for most outsourcing companies I know. This way they can announce that they are hiring and they can even share updates or news about the company. This is a great post!