Happy Social Media Week 2014! What better excuse to talk about one thing I can’t live without!
Most brands now are recognising the power of social media and if you aren’t you should be. As technology grows and updates rise we are being forced into it, but it’s a good thing! Here’s why Social Media is a ‘must’ for your business:
• Improves brand loyalty and recognition – Social Media gives you the opportunity to syndicate your content and make it visible to millions worldwide, why would you not what to do this?
Brands using social media to communicate enjoy a higher loyalty from those who aren’t. For example customers can see instantly how brands are dealing with complaints.
• Increases opportunities for customer converts – If you’re on social media you have the opportunity to drive your audience to where you want them to go with every post. It could be a link to your homepage, a product on sale or your latest news story. Every blog post, image or comment you share is an opportunity for someone to react and interact in a conversion.
• Decreases offline marketing costs – As we move everything online, our offline marketing is slowly becoming a thing of the past. If your content is easy to access instantly and customers find what they want online they won’t spend the time trawling through costly magazines and booklets.
Offline publications aren’t out the window just yet but it may be worth revisiting your budgets and spending your money elsewhere online, via PPC and social advertising. It’s a great way to reach tons of people at a relatively low cost!
• Increases search engine rankings – The dreaded SEO. Don’t be knocked down by its technical sound; simply having a strong social media presence is taking the first step to improving your search engine optimisation.
When I talk about a ‘strong social media presence’ I don’t just mean opening 10 social media accounts; take the time to find out what social media presences work for you, create valuable and regular content, experiment and build your online networks.
The requirements for SEO are one thing you can’t ignore. Simply updating content, changing your title tags and meta tags is not enough and Google can vouch for this. Google Algorithms are your life line to staying on track with SEO.
• Improves customer insights – Social media gives you the opportunity to gain useful insights into your customer behaviour. From demographics, geographic’s to instant feedback and interaction.
There’s a whole heap of social media tools you can use to manage content and analyse your customer behaviour.
I hate to be blunt but if you’re still sceptical about Social Media you’re not moving with time. Social media marketing is here to stay……. Take a look at my 5 ways to creating a social media strategy for your business for more advice.