The concept of social media came about back in 1997. The first social media platform, along with the subsequent others that followed, was initially designed to bridge the communication gap between friends, family, and acquaintances who lived cities or even countries apart. The idea of this digital channel that could connect people hundred or thousands of miles away was met with equal parts acceptance and concern.
However, with the growing popularity of the internet, social media soon began to gain traction and more and more people began setting up their accounts and profiles on social media platforms. The number of social media users kept growing by the minute, and, soon, this concept evolved into something far beyond just a communication channel; it became the world’s largest marketplace. Soon, marketers realized the benefits of social media for businesses which led to the birth of social media marketing.
Recent reports show that there are about 4.62 billion social media users in the world, that’s more than half of the entire world’s population. Furthermore, the average daily usage time is two hours and twenty-seven minutes. With such a large audience distributed across just a few dominant online platforms, all of which are just a few clicks away, social media is the world’s largest and most potent marketplace to date.
Philly Online Marketing, an industry-leading digital marketing firm in Philadelphia, also presently ranked as the 34th best in the city, advises its clients as well as all Philadelphia business owners to incorporate social media marketing strategies in their advertising campaigns. In order to assist local business owners in gaining momentum and expanding their operations and profits, the agency also offers some of the finest Philadelphia social media marketing services in town.
To help you gain better insights as to why is social media marketing important, this article will walk you through some of the major benefits of social media for businesses.
Why Is Social Media Marketing Important – 7 Major Advantages of Social Media for Businesses
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Seeing as how more than half of the entire world’s population browses through social media at least once during the day, social platforms and applications such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are essentially an ocean of consumers and, therefore, an ideal avenue to reach new and relevant customers.
Looking from the consumer’s perspective, social media platforms are not only great places to connect with brands you already know and are familiar with, but they are also ideal for discovering new products and brands as well. According to a survey, 83% of users on Instagram admit that they also use the platform to find new products.
All in all, the massive audience that social media platforms have amassed makes them the perfect channel to provide your business with the public exposure it needs to grow and increase the brand awareness of your company.
2. Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader
While there has been a recent shift towards mistrust of NGOs, government, and the media, owing to the pandemic, the business sector still enjoys a 61% level of trust, according to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer.
This entails that the consumers are now looking toward businesses and brands for information and insights, and there is no better platform than social media to communicate the insights and information that consumers are seeking from them.
Regardless of which industry your company belongs to, social media allows you to position your company as a thought leader and the go-to authority on issues pertaining to your respective field.
When looking to establish yourself as a thought leader and authority, you should focus your efforts more on LinkedIn and Twitter, which are excellent platforms for sharing thoughts and insights, especially the LinkedIn Publishing Platform. This is because these platforms are generally perceived as informative and business-oriented channels.
3. Humanizes Your Business
One of the main benefits of social media for businesses is the opportunity it provides you to form genuine and meaningful human connections with your audience. For instance, you could showcase how current clients are using and profiting from your products or introduce your followers to the team of the individuals that make up your business and the products you offer.
This genuineness and humaneness fosters trust, which, in turn, enhances the receptivity of your audience to your marketing strategies and promotes new business. When it comes to cultivating this authenticity and genuineness, there is no better place to start than on social media.
You can use social platforms to show how you’re living up to your brand principles, how your product actually performs, and how you’re prioritizing the needs of your staff and customers. Additionally, you can use social media to display your efforts in tackling certain social or environmental issues, in doing so, garnering the admiration of your audience as well as other institutions that are fighting against the same issue.
4. Boost Web Traffic
Some of the primary methods for increasing website traffic include regular and consistent social media posting and advertisements. An effective strategy to gather new viewers and viewers, and readers are to share all your newly posted content from your website and blog to your social media profiles and handles. You can even gather information about your click-throughs using UTM tracking tags.
Partaking in social chats is another effective strategy to gain visibility, attract new followers, demonstrate your subject matter expertise, and promote your website. However, you should keep in mind that these strategies only work if you offer genuine value rather than just self-promotion.
Moreover, you should also link all your social media posts and content back to your website to ensure that people can easily look up your business if they wish to learn more about you.
5. Collaborate with Influencers and Other Businesses
Consumer decisions are greatly influenced by reviews and recommendations from friends and family. Every time people talk, post, or share content about your business or product, you enjoy free marketing, which can help you establish trust for your brand and increase sales.
One effective way to encourage word-of-mouth marketing on social media is by partnering with social media influencers who have a sizable social media following and can direct that following’s attention to your brand.
For instance, you could partner with an influencer such as a Youtuber, Instagram model, etc., and have them make and share an unboxing video of your product on their social media accounts. Adore Me, a lingerie brand adopted a similar approach when they collaborated with influencers for a series of unboxing videos of their products. According to Instagram, the brand witnessed a 7% higher conversion rate, and its click-through rate almost doubled. This rapid boost in business testifies to the effectiveness of social media and is one of the biggest benefits of social media for businesses.
Collaborating with influencers and coming up with an agreement that is mutually beneficial for both, however, can be challenging and requires the knowledge and expertise of a professional marketer. That is why we recommend enlisting the help of a professional Philadelphia social media marketing service. Doing so will help ensure that your social media strategy is effective and does not exceed your marketing budget.
6. Better Lead Generation and Conversion Rates
Social media platforms have been optimized and updated over the last few years in order to make them more business-centric. What this means is that social platforms such as Instagram and Facebook now offer dedicated inbuilt tools and features that allow businesses to navigate the platforms better and use them to promote their products and services in a more effective way.
Using these tools and features, a business can configure its social media marketing strategy in a way that their ads, posts, and all other content are displayed only to those people who, based on their social media activities, might be interested in what the business has to offer.
Thanks to these tools, social media allows for a very highly targeted marketing strategy meaning that you can filter out the irrelevant audience and market your business only to those users who are already interested in your products or services.
This targeted marketing means higher-quality leads and a better lead conversion rate. This is because any consumer that is directed to your website through social media will already be interested in your product, and so you have a better chance of turning that lead into a sale. According to reports, social media marketing, compared to outbound marketing, has almost twice the lead-to-close rate.
Consider McCarthy and Stone, for instance. The company used Facebook lead ads to allow interested visitors to learn more about their real estate projects with only a few taps. For a cost that was two times less than that of conventional digital real estate campaigns, the ads ended up generating 4.3 times more leads than the previous year.
7. Gain Insights about Your Audience
One of the best ways to grow your business and boost your lead generation and lead conversion rate is to tailor your social media marketing around the behavior and the likes and dislikes of your targeted audience. The only way to do so, however, is to first learn about your audience and the marketplace.
Fortunately, one of the biggest benefits of social media for businesses is that it generates an enormous amount of data and information about the marketplace and your potential customers in real-time. As such, it can serve as an excellent forum for learning more about the marketplace and your targeted consumers. You can learn about the type of content your target audience likes, what they look for in a brand, current market trends, and much more.
Tracking how users engage with your content and that of your competitors, for instance, by reading comments, taking surveys, chatting, etc., you can learn where your products or services might fall short and what you can do to improve them.
Additionally, the analytical tools available on most social networks can provide you with information such as the age and location of your target demographic as well. Having this knowledge will enable you to enhance your products and better customize them to the requirements and tastes of your target market. This can give you an advantage over your competitors and boost your lead conversion rates.
Philadelphia Social Media Marketing Manager – Why Do You Need One?
If you’re a Philadelphia-based business who’s just starting out with social media marketing or have been doing it for some time but are struggling to get it right, it’s time you hire a professional Philadelphia social media marketing manager. There are several reasons why you should enlist the help of a professional manager. Here are some of the main ones:
1. The Social Landscape Keeps Changing
Social media algorithms are always changing, with programmers and designers rolling out new features, security measures, and updates once every few days or weeks. A professional Philadelphia social media marketing manager will be able to anticipate and track these changes and modify your marketing strategy accordingly so that it retains its effectiveness and keeps generating results.
2. Engagement via Social Media Is Necessary
Infrequent, unplanned, and carelessly posting on your social media profiles would be doing a disservice to your business and brand. If any of this reminds you of your current social media marketing strategy, we urge that you go back to the drawing board since such an approach can do more harm than good.
To exploit the marketing potential of social networks, you need to focus on user engagement. A social media manager will be able to assist you in planning your content and guide you in posting it in a way that maximizes your engagement.
The manager will also know how to react and respond to consumer feedback, negative and positive, which can be a key factor in deciding whether you retain and acquire new customers or lose your existing ones.
3. Reporting and Tracking
No marketing strategy can guarantee a 100% success rate. That is why we rely on analytical tools to discern whether our marketing strategy is bearing any fruit or if it is just wasting our resources. A marketing manager will use analytical tools to monitor and report whether or not your marketing strategy is effective. Doing so allows them to continuously improve your marketing, ensuring continuous and improved results.
The manager will also be able to create strategies based on your monthly and annual goals for the business and will make sure the goals are met.
Philadelphia Social Media Marketing – Need Assistance?
Now that you know why is social media marketing important for businesses, it is crucial that all Philadelphia-based companies integrate this marketing strategy into their marketing plans. To help you develop a personalized and optimized social media strategy tailored to the needs and targets of your business, Philly Online Marketing offers the finest social media marketing services in town.
Their team of experienced and specialized marketers can cater to the needs of any business, no matter how large or small. To learn more about how they can help you, click here!
