Did you know that as of 2020, 3.96 billion people in the world use social media platforms? This is a 10.9% increase from 2019 according to Backlinko.com. Facebook data also reveals that over three million businesses actively advertise through the Facebook platform. While facebook is one of the many social media platforms on the uprise in 2021, this statistic still shows how powerful and necessary social media marketing is in your overall digital marketing strategy.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing can be defined as the use of social media and social networking platforms to market a businesses goods and services. It is a digital outbound marketing tool that gives businesses an opportunity to build an ongoing relationship with existing customers as well as expose their brand to new markets and potential customers.
Social media experienced a huge upswing in 2020 and that trend has yet to fall. There is a new demand for digital interaction and social media marketing provides an excellent platform to meet the needs of customers and engage with them in the way they now demand – digitally. If you are not utilizing social media marketing either through a social media marketing agency or internally at your business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Below are some of the many benefits to incorporating social media marketing into your strategy for 2021.
Exposure
As mentioned in the opening of this post, there is a huge, ever growing audience on social media. It is a platform free to consumers and provides an easy, efficient way to spread your brand and your messaging to the end user. Social media has both organic (free) and paid (ads) opportunities. The organic side provides direct exposure to an existing following while paid ads provide the opportunity to reach people that are not yet engaging with you on social platforms.
Unique Branding
The environment on a social media network is very different from other digital marketing outlets such as google ads, email marketing, etc. Social networks are where people go when deloading after a long day, when bored on a weekend, or even just to connect with someone they haven’t talked to in years. Whatever the reason may be, as of 2020, the average daily social media usage per person is 145 minutes per day! Because of the casual environment created by these networks, the opportunity to engage with customers in a unique way emerges. For example, you can portray your brand through staff videos you may not have been willing to put marketing dollars behind before, through games or quizzes or even polls that require direct interaction from your customers.
Low Cost
Social media provides an extremely low cost per acquisition in comparison to other marketing mediums. Not only can you post to your existing audience for free as frequently as you want, you can boost those posts or create ads to specific audiences for as little as a dollar a day. While the recommended budget by the platform may be much higher, our testing shows that lower daily budgets prove to be just as effective.
Improved Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is simply explained as customers coming back to you for the products or services you offer over and over rather than other competitors. Part of how brand loyalty is built is through relationship building and exceptional customer service. Social media platforms give you the ability to interact with customers on a one to one (personalized) level. It also gives them the opportunity to truly see your brand and what it stands for on a consistent basis. A strong social media strategy includes lots of content that specifically does NOT push a product or service but instead your brand: who you are, what you do, and why.
SEO
While you may not expect what you do on platforms other than your website itself to have an impact on SEO, you would be wrong in assuming so! The most efficient SEO strategies include pushing out content across multiple platforms with the goal of both driving traffic and increasing engagement through the relationship building process. Platforms like social media provide an opportunity for high levels of engagement. Engagement can hold more weight than website visits alone because it shows search engines that your content is worth showing.
Targeting
When signing up for a social media account, you may not read all the terms and conditions that explain how they will use and share your information. Information that makes up your profile, the types of content you post, and even search habits on other platforms will place you into certain “target audience” categories on social media platforms. These platforms are then made available to small businesses for marketing purposes. As a business, you are able to very specifically target your custom audience – be it someone in the market for a vehicle, or someone who is a frequent restaurant diner.
These are only a few of the many benefits to utilizing the affordable platform of social media for your digital marketing purposes. If you would like more information or would like assistance planning out your social media strategy, contact Klout 9 – Your local Social Media Marketing Agency.