An upgraded social media strategy can only do more good for a business. Through the pandemic, more than half of consumers have said their social media use has grown. When asked how important social media is to their marketing strategy, 58% of brands said “very important” while only 2.4% said “unimportant”.

To build a successful, concentric marketing strategy, a number of platforms and methods need to be in place. When social media platforms are pieces of your digital marketing strategy, it is important to utilize them well. Otherwise, your time and money will go to waste. 

A smart marketer will regularly ask themselves how satisfied they are with their brand’s social media presence. If there is any hesitation or doubt, or simply the knowledge that your brand’s social media could be better, there are a number of reasons to upgrade your strategy.

Reason #1: Your customers are likely using social media 

Social media is an easy outlet for maintaining long-term relationships with your customers and greatest fans. With that said, you have to give your followers a reason to keep following you.

There are many ways to foster brand loyalty with your customers through social media, including giveaways, simply engaging and responding to comments, and providing easy and responsive customer-support on social media. The one common theme that all these actions accomplish is that they provide value.

When building your social media content strategy, think primarily about ways that you can continue to provide value. Your social media platforms can provide education and unlimited win-win opportunities that will keep your customers, including former customers, interested in what you have to offer.

Reason #2: Your new customers are using social media, too.

72% of companies use social media to inform business decisions. It is a key opportunity for new customers to discover your brand. Choosing 2-3 of the major social media platforms to create a profile on is a great place to start seriously increasing your online reach. Consider which platforms you think your target audience will be most active on and where your content can provide the most value. If you don’t at least have a Facebook Business page listing with a post that is less than a few months old, many will doubt that your business even exists or they may assume it’s been closed.

If you are looking for effective ways to reach new customers through social media, here are some ideas:

• Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to create audiences of your ideal customers, then run automated campaigns to connect with them.
• Run a contest that requires users to tag their friends in order to enter to win.
• Create a Facebook advertising campaign targeted to your audience’s interests, hobbies, locations, and more.

Essentially, there is no shortage of potential customers scrolling through social media every day, who are ready at any time to discover what your brand has to offer.

Reason #3: Social media marketing is cost-effective.

To start, all the major social media platforms are free to use. In fact, a better social media presence can cost you no money if you want to. It will, however, cost you more time if you choose to do it yourself. Here are some ways social media can actually save your business money:

• Facebook advertising remains one of the most affordable ways to advertise your brand online. It also allows you to set your own budget so that you can test campaigns to see what performs well, then put more money into it if you see fit.
• LinkedIn campaigns provide an excellent opportunity to create new leads by hyper-targeting on your exact desired B2B audience. Solopreneurs who want to reach new customers through branding their own face and name, expertise, and knowledge can accomplish this effectively without spending too much.
• If a business is using social media for customer support, it can save a lot of money on other platforms and even help reduce employee cost.
• LinkedIn job postings cost significantly less than other recruiting tactics and can generate a large pool of talent options.
• Social media is a free communication method to stay in touch with leads, while email campaigns and other CRMs often are not.

Essentially, there is no shortage of potential customers scrolling through social media every day, who are ready at any time to discover what your brand has to offer.

Reason #4: Social media is an extension of your brand.

Imagine being able to say you are very confident in your business’ social media presence. When you look at your pages and your latest posts, are you proud, or do you feel that it needs work? Do your social media posts reflect what you want your brand to communicate? Do they paint a picture of how you want your brand to be recognized in five to ten years?

When we begin working with a client on their social media, we take them through a questionnaire process to thoroughly understand the essence of their brand. We want to know how our client wants his or her business to be perceived online, both now and many years from now.

In today’s digital marketing world, content is king. What this means is that there are endless opportunities to influence your audience with your words. 79% of people say that user-generated content on social media significantly affects their purchasing decisions. 

Here are some ways to build trust with your social media audience:

• Become a thought leader or an influencer online. Share your expertise as often as you can and soon enough, people will begin to recognize your brand as an effective and trustworthy source of information with experience to prove it.
• Prioritize quick response times to customer inquiries. Platforms like Facebook will show your message response time to anyone who comes to the page, so making that number a positive one is important.
• Share educational content. If you have a product or series of products, create videos that show people how to use it. Think about answering the most frequently asked questions you encounter through social media posts regularly. 

Social media consistently remains one of the greatest drivers of brand awareness within a marketing strategy, and that is a major reason to prioritize it.

Reason #5: Retargeting

Both new and experienced marketers almost certainly have heard this concept: It takes at least eight touchpoints with a prospect to make a sale.

The number is debatable but of course, there is plenty of truth to this. The bottom line is that in order to increase sales, you need to regularly show up for your prospects and customers. Social media makes it easier to stay top of mind for your audience.

Consistency is key with social media, whether you decide to post once a month or three times per day. The best way to stay consistent with social media is to create an editorial calendar that aligns all your content efforts into one space to bring everyone working on it together on the same ideas and strategy.  A calendar also allows you to plan ahead for campaigns surrounding holidays and important seasons for your business. Social media scheduling tools such as Hootsuite, Social Pilot, Sprout Social, Buffer, and others will allow you to schedule your posts to publish whenever you want so that you can set them and move ahead to thinking of the next month.

Many social media advertising platforms also allow you to retarget people who have visited your website and this method of advertising is one of the most popular and successful.

Beyond these five reasons, there are many opportunities that come with prioritizing social media in your overall digital marketing strategy. Contact Cazarin Interactive today to schedule a free brand audit to evaluate your social media presence against your competitors.