It can be tempting to write off social media as a time-waster. It’s something that teenagers scroll through while pretending to listen in Physics class, or that workers look at while they’re having a bathroom break. It’s for funny videos and engagement announcements. So why would I involve my brand? Business and social media simply didn’t mix.
While this thinking may have been somewhat accurate 10 years ago, these days it couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, social media is now the best place to market your brand. There are a host of reasons while you should think about a marriage of social media and business, but here are just a few.
Brand Legitimacy and Visibility
If you’re a startup that is looking to make a name for yourself, or even an established business that is looking for some serious growth, a business social media account is vital.
Let’s say your name has caught someone’s ear. If that person is 65+ years old, they may reach for the Yellow Pages. If that person is 30-65 years old, they might Google you instead. But if the person in question is young, one of the first places that they’ll search is on Facebook.
To many teenagers and twenty-somethings, a brand without a Facebook page – or even a Twitter feed or Instagram account – is not a brand at all. Savvy internet users know that you can garner very different information from a business’s social media accounts than you can the business’s website. How they present themselves, how they interact with their customers; a brand’s social presence is a goldmine of information.
What’s more, having social media accounts for your business will also greatly assist your Google effectiveness, as social platforms always perform spectacularly well in search engine rankings.
A Focus on Customer Service
By including social media in business strategy, you are opening yourself up in a big way. Customers gain a very direct and very public line of communication. And whether this platform for communication is used for praise or for constructive criticism, there’s no doubt what it results in – a huge focus on customer service.
Social media for businesses and organisations puts a spotlight on how well a brand treats their customers. It will become instantly obvious to a brand that on social media, businesses are required to be honest, open, and deal with things effectively and efficiently.
With business social, you are forced to display excellent customer service, which is a great thing for your brand.
Access to the World of Content Marketing
Social media allows businesses to involve themselves in a little thing called content marketing. If done right, content marketing can be the greatest single advertising ploy a brand can undertake.
In early 2010, Old Spice was that deodorant that your Grandpa wore on certain Sundays. Then Old Spice produced a stunning piece of content entitled ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’, which became an instant viral sensation. Ever since, Old Spice has released content in the same vein, and the business has grown exponentially. It went from a dying brand to the brand you had to have with a simple 33 second video clip. Such is the power of good content.
Content marketing works by advertising without advertising. A brand creates a branded piece of content that either educates or entertains, and if it’s good enough, people start to share it. This is where social media is so vital. With the easy ‘share’ and ‘repost’ functions found on most social platforms, a good piece of content (be it a video, infographic, blog or podcast) can go from unknown to a worldwide sensation in just a day.
The brand recognition that comes from such virality is invaluable, and was impossible to achieve just 10 or 15 years ago.
There are many other benefits that come from getting your brand on social media, from using social media at conferences, to accessing data on customer demographics. And the best thing? It is completely free to set up. You don’t have to spend a marketing cent.
So what’s stopping you? Let’s get your business social.
