Unlocking Social Media Power: 13 Benefits & A Step-by-Step Guide to Boost Your Business

As a business, social media marketing is easy to overlook. It’s easy to write it off and say that it isn’t doing anything when it’s more difficult to see the return on your investment. But there’s no doubt that the value is there.

With approximately 80 percent of the U.S. population – or 264 million people – using at least one social media platform, there’s a huge amount of potential to engage with potential customers.

That offers huge potential for you to reach your target market on one of these platforms, giving you another chance for your brand to reach them and get them to consider using your company. Then, you’re one step closer to another successful sale!

It’s a little more complicated than that, though. When you put in the time and effort required for a successful social media marketing campaign, there are 13 benefits you’ll see.

The 13 Biggest Benefits to Social Media Marketing:

1. Reach & Engagement
2. Cost-Effective
3. Brand Recognition
4. Targeted Advertising
5. Builds Relationships
6. Access to Diverse Audiences
7. Instant Feedback
8. Content Distribution
9. Staying Competitive
10. Analytics & Insights
11. Drive Web Traffic
12. Improved SEO
13. Crisis Management

1. Reach & Engagement

The biggest and most apparent advantage of social media marketing is its huge reach. With hundreds of millions of active users in the U.S. alone, you have the ability to reach a large audience. 

2. Cost-Effective

For the huge audience you have available to you, social media marketing can be a cost-effective way to advertise your brand. Posting on social media is free, and creating targeted ads are less expensive than many other forms of traditional advertising, making it an excellent choice for smaller businesses.

3. Brand Recognition

In many ways, brand recognition is the first place to start with marketing. Before encouraging people to choose your product or service, they need to be familiar with your brand. Regularly engaging with social media can boost brand recognition and encourage loyalty. Users will become more familiar with your brand name and its values as they see it on their feed.

4. Targeted Advertising

As mentioned above, you can use social media to create targeted advertisements. These ads can narrow in on a specific group of people to which your messaging can be tailored, making them more likely to choose your product or service. You’ll be able to make target ads based on user demographics, interests, behaviors and more, ensuring that ads reach the most relevant audience.

5. Builds Relationships

A main part of social media is the social element. When a business utilizes social media, the interactive aspects allow businesses to foster relationships with customers and potential customers. You’re able to participate in real-time conversations, address concerns and gather feedback in a way that other forums and mediums don’t allow.

6. Access to Diverse Audiences

Different social media platforms attract different demographics. A robust social media marketing strategy will allow you to communicate across multiple channels and cater to a diverse audience.

7. Instant Feedback

The interactive nature of social media allows companies to receive instant feedback on their products, services or marketing campaigns. This can be invaluable for testing new ideas or understanding customer sentiment.

8. Content Distribution

Got a new blog post? A product launch video? Social media platforms are essential for distributing and amplifying content to a broader audience quickly.

9. Staying Competitive

As more businesses adopt social media marketing, a brand must have a presence on these platforms to remain competitive and be where the customers are. Otherwise, you risk losing out on customers.

10. Analytics & Insights

Social media platforms also provide in-depth analytics about user engagement, post-performance and audience demographics. This data is invaluable for improving your website, determining what’s working and finding new ways to attract more customers.

11. Drive Web Traffic

Social media can be a significant source of website traffic. Sharing blog posts, product pages and other website content on social platforms can direct users back to your site where they can become a lead.

12. Improved SEO

Similarly to boosting traffic to your website, actively posting on social media can improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google. While social media metrics aren't direct ranking factors for search engines like Google, the traffic and links generated from social media can influence search ranking.

13. Crisis Management

In the age of digital media, news (both positive and negative) can spread rapidly. Social media allows brands to monitor mentions, address concerns and handle PR crises proactively.

Tips for Starting or Expanding Your Social Media Marketing

Once you’ve decided that social media marketing is worth your time, it’s important to remember that growing an audience or following doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop your company’s accounts.

Once you have established your social media platforms, following a series of stages is important to achieve your desired results. Each stage will take you several months.

Stages to Follow:

1. Develop a Following and Post Regularly

The first step is to take time to gain followers and people interested in what your account has to say. You’ll also want to take this time to get used to posting regularly. This is crucial to keeping people interested in your business’s posts as well as in the algorithm’s good graces.

2. Focus On Brand Awareness

Once an audience is built, your posts should focus on brand awareness. Your messaging will be focused on introducing your company to people. This will include the services you offer, the products you carry and what makes you different from your competitors. This is when people will get used to seeing your brand.

3. Encourage Consideration

Once people know your brand, you will want to focus on promoting your products and services. This stage is dedicated to getting people to consider choosing your brand. They will decide if they can trust your services or buy your products. You should include strong calls to act on these posts.

Things to Keep in Mind

The whole time you're running these marketing campaigns, you should also be publishing regular social posts. Living in the organic social media space is the most underrated weapon any company has at its disposal.

Start Building Your Social Media Today

After collecting these tips to get started, you have no reason to wait. Develop a strategy and begin building a social media calender. If you’re still not sure where to begin, though, learn more about getting started with our blog highlighting the best social media platforms for home service businesses.

Or contact the team at 360 PSG to help you leverage your existing social media audience to benefit your business and help you generate more leads.