Big opportunities for businesses in social media marketing

Social media - regardless of whether you love it or hate it, there’s no doubt that it can benefit your business. If you’re not using social media marketing for business purposes, you’re really missing out. Consider this staggering statistic:

Over 2 billion internet users have active social media accounts.

Fact is, if you’ve got a business, you need to be on social media but merely having a presence isn’t enough these days. The most sophisticated of marketing experts, are using social media in numerous ways and recognise the massive opportunities for business in this space.

How can social media marketing benefit your business? The team here at Pronto Woven have put our heads together and come up with our top 5 reasons you need to embrace social media:

Reason #1 - To build relationships with your customers

Engaging with your customers has never been easier thanks to social media. Have a good think about the social channels and pages you visit on a daily basis. What are these brands doing right? Where are they going wrong? The worst thing any business can do from a marketing sense, is to set-up their social media accounts and simply sell constantly to people. The most effective social media marketing, sees brands conversing with their customers about their products and services as well as the customer experience during each step of the sales funnel. Ensure your content is balanced, ask your customers questions, have a little bit of fun and get creative!

Reason #2 - So you can benefit from priceless customer insights

Once upon a time, an organisation could spend a ridiculous amount of money on market research. Even if you don’t realise it now, social media generates an incredible amount of data about your customers in real time. This data helps you to understand your ideal client - who are they? What are their problems? What impression do they have about your products and services?

In business and marketing of any kind, communication and the ability to listen is vital. Make sure you’re tuning in to what your customers are telling you. Trust us, thanks to social media, so many invaluable insights are there for the taking!

Reason #3 - To run cost-effective advertisements

Gone are the days when a marketing strategy consisted of expensive TV, radio or print advertisements that wiped out your monthly marketing budget in one go. Social media advertising is incredibly cost-effective - you can get started on Facebook with a daily budget that costs less than your morning coffee! Unlike other forms of advertising, you can also test, measure and evaluate the success of your campaigns, enabling you to adjust your advertisements according to what the data is telling you. You really are spoilt for choice as a marketer in terms of powerful targeting options. Choose to target based on location, interests, behaviours and so on.

Reason #4 - So you can get the inside scoop on your competitors

Welcome to the wonderful world of the internet and more specifically, social media monitoring. These tools allow you to gain priceless information about your competitors. Monitor industry keywords, be aware every time a competitor’s name or product is mentioned… the possibilities thanks to the likes of Hootsuite really are endless. This is the kind of information that arms you with the knowledge that’ll really assist you in improving your business and current offerings.

Reason #5 - For speed and convenience

Remember the days when we first heard about news in the next day’s newspaper? Social media has been a real game-changer in terms of how fast you’re able to share content. Launching a new product has never been faster or easier… you can be just one Facebook post or Tweet away from generating hundreds or even thousands of sales. Taking full advantage of the speed and immediacy of social media will go a long way to generating sales.

Of course, this is a brief summary of what can be achieved with effective social media marketing. Like everything else, social media is only as beneficial or ineffective as the strategy and people in your organisation who are driving it. Be wary of individuals and organisations who are self-proclaimed social media marketing experts. Like every industry, this space is one where it’s very easy to spend money with very little gain. Do your homework and you won’t look back!

If you’d like to have a discussion with our Pronto Woven team about your social media requirements, contact us now. We’ll be in touch shortly to set-up an obligation free meeting so that we can understand your business, its needs and most importantly, those all-important long-term goals. We’ve helped hundreds of clients use social media marketing to their advantage so we know how much of a difference a solid strategy can make.

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