In the old days, marketing was all about one-way communication with consumers via advertisements, newsletters, and hard calls to action. Now, with the advent of social platforms and live chat services, consumers expect to be able to communicate with brands in a much more transparent and immediate way. If the social strategy isn’t part of your marketing efforts, you could be missing out on much more than likes and shares. Here are five reasons to make social media a marketing priority.
1. Build Strong Relationships
Marketing through social platforms is all about the relationship you have with clients. This is no place for the hard sell; it’s where you position your brand for open and honest two-way communication. There is a growing emphasis on transparency in business today, and that means that more and more brands are getting away from one-way advertising messages and focusing instead on relationship-building and making connections with consumers. Social media opens up limitless opportunities to engage visitors, and if you’re not online you’re surely missing out. In fact, some brands report increasing revenue by upwards of $1 million as a result of marketing on social.
2. Make Your Brand Accessible
In the same vein as transparency comes accessibility. Once upon a time, it was sufficient to list your contact information on your business website and return calls and emails on your schedule. Now, it’s all about providing excellent customer service on your client’s schedule. People expect to be able to connect with you at any time and can access social media to do so. Having a strong presence online makes you accessible and welcoming to visitors, no matter what time it is.
3. Engage Your Target Audience
If there were one single reason to integrate social into your marketing strategy, it would be an invaluable opportunity to pinpoint and connect with your target audience. Besides the relationship-building aspect, most social platforms also have their own analytics functions. This means you can quantitatively measure the number of likes, shares, and visits to specific content. Why does it matter? It matters because you can learn what types of content your target audience loves, which will help you craft an extremely insightful marketing campaign.
4. Leverage Social Media Advertising
While the main point of bringing social media into your marketing strategy is to open up two-way communication and make connections with clients, these platforms also create new opportunities for advertising. Many social sites offer their own paid advertising space. It’s a great place to insert your brand and gain wide visibility among your target audience. If you have the budget for them, using these advertising services can give you measurable insight to the impact of your ads.
5. Create Shareable Content
Finally, one of the best reasons to use social platforms like YouTube is to develop shareable content. Research shows that video content is some of the most viral on the web, and you can maximize your marketing efforts by creating a YoutTube channel for your business. The great aspect about creating video content on YouTube is that you can use the same videos across all of your social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and your business website.
These are just five reasons to make your social strategy a marketing must.
