5 Advantages Of Social Media Marketing To Your Business

In today’s digital world, every business recognises the need for having an online presence, and a good one at that. A huge part of having an effective online presence is social media. Regardless of what you’re selling and to whom, social media is a powerful tool which helps you grow your brand. Additionally, if you have your social media marketing strategy in place (organic and paid), it can exponentially boost your bottom line. While social media is a great resource to engage current customers, it can also actively drive your sales. It is also one of the best ways to get in front of potential customers, especially through targeted advertising. 

Interacting with consumers on social media is an important marketing strategy for small businesses. Using social media helps you build brand awareness, increase your customer base, and connect with current customers. Of course, social media management is a time-consuming task, and when you throw in the nuances of advertising on social media as well, it makes you wonder if it is truly worth it. 

However, research has shown that over 80% of Australians are connected to the internet. Based on research released in September 2019, 60% of the Australian population are active Facebook users, with 50% of the population logging into Facebook on a daily basis. LinkedIn reports there are over 10 million registered users in Australia, with studies showing just over half of these users log in every month. 1 in 2 Australians use YouTube, and 1 in 3 use Instagram.  59% of marketers are actively using social to support their lead generation and business goals. However, there are also a few people who don’t see the benefits of using social media to achieve business goals.

With such a vast variety of channels at your disposal, it can be overwhelming trying to choose the right one. But, if you do, you can use social media advertising to drive more sales than you could possibly keep up with. Let’s face it, that’s a good problem to have. If you’re not already on the relevant channels to reach your audience and targeting them effectively, here are 5 advantages to your business that can come from well-strategised social media marketing:

Advantage #1: Managing your marketing budget 

Year on year, Australia’s digital advertising spending has grown exponentially, predicted to grow to over $17 billion dollars by 2020. The reason for this growth trajectory is based on the simple fact that paid social media is affordable. Whatever your budget, you are able to run ads as well as small tests that differs from your usual spending, to learn what works best for your business.

A problem with spending on social media is that tracking these spends across multiple platforms and campaigns is difficult and time-consuming. Add to that the requirement to track conversions, optimisation and direct budget to the most effective campaigns, and you have a complex set of management requirements. Digital agencies like ours are experts in effectively managing your digital marketing budget, having developed tools and processes over hundreds of clients to make the process more efficient. 

Advantage #2 : Building your brand image

While your loyal customers will discover your social media channels, there’s a whole untapped audience you can target through social media. The power of paid social media advertising lies in its ability to target and re-target specific audiences. Either through demo-targeting, geo-targeting or retargeting, you are able to get the attention of new customers. Social platforms also prospect really well for marketers by tapping into first and/or third-party data to reach potential customers. 

Brands are using social media to tell their story through channels which help to develop their image. Pushing out ads about your brand helps customers who haven’t interacted with your brand before to know more about you and your offering. Digital agencies work with a wide variety of industries, business types and marketing professionals. They get to learn about and develop innovative, successful marketing techniques and apply them to different sectors of the business community.

Advantage #3 : Reporting that is detailed and real-time

You could put a million dollars in advertising spend, but if you aren’t tracking its progress and changing your campaign strategies to suit trends, all the money you spend is wasted. An excellent way to measure the performance of your campaigns on social media is through the detailed reports that come out of Business Manager and Insights accounts. Accountability is key. The ability to measure paid social media campaign performance in real-time gives marketers the ability to adjust targeting strategies or creative elements quickly, resulting in better return on ad spend.

While data is good, it can be overwhelming to have pages and pages of it. If you don’t spot the right trends, it can cost you a fair amount of budget wastage before you can fix your campaign. Having an expert keep an eye on the trends and subtle changes in your campaigns means that you won’t have to worry about improper spending on your campaigns.

Advantage #4 : Favours from the search engines

Most people are researching what they want to buy on search engines like Google, Bing, Amazon and DuckDuckGo, to name a few. What many businesses don’t realise, however, is that well-written posts on social media boost the profile of brands in organic search rankings as well. If your business has a social media listing, chances are, it will appear among the top search results of a related product or service, leading to a wider visibility.

Search engine crawlers know which pages are consistently earning traffic and which are just floating out there, forgotten and ignored. If you’ve got an agency partner that retains employees in a range of different roles, they can apply the right mix of skills to meet your campaign objectives.

Advantage #5 : Increased visibility leading to improved sales

Whatever the nature of your business, the main aim for any business is to generate more sales. And when you use social media marketing for a business, you tend to have more chances of having good sales. 

Users who had never heard about your business earlier, now know all about your business and the kind of services/products that you are offering. Having a good online presence can have a direct impact on your sales. With the increased brand visibility that comes with advertising in social media, more leads will visit your website, and the chance of conversion also increases.

Conclusion

While good content creation is a key trend on social media, it is important to leverage this with well-planned social media advertising. If you feel like you could be doing more with your social media campaigns, or would like to use social media differently for your brand, have a free strategy session with us. We can discuss your options and make your brand the most socially savvy it has been!