12 Ways Social Media Propels Business Growth and Success

Building a social media presence for your business can be an effective way of generating interest and sales. More entrepreneurs are realizing this than ever before and as a consequence, almost every company has its own account on either Instagram or Facebook. But why does social media propel business growth and success, you might ask? The most obvious answer is that millions of people from all over the world use it on a daily basis. However, there are many other factors for why social media is so effective than active users. This post will explore this topic in more detail, explaining nine ways social media can give your enterprise a helping hand.

Builds Brand Awareness

As mentioned above, the most popular social media platforms used by businesses are Instagram and Facebook. Both of these brands make it possible for you to build brand awareness. Instagram is especially effective, due to the large amount of people that use it. The bigger your page is, the more people will be aware of your business. You can increase your Instagram likes and followers by paying for a professional service to boost them. Alternatively, you can build likes and followers organically, which takes a lot longer and is much more difficult.

Grow Your Audience

Social media is a great place to grow your business’s audience. Platforms like those mentioned in the previous section and in the introduction have millions of daily users. This many people using them means that you have an almost unlimited number of advertising opportunities. Of course, you do need to focus on spreading awareness and getting your business’s name out there. You can do that by hiring a marketing agency and paying them to do the work for you. Alternatively, you can market your pages yourself.

Positive Brand Image

You need to cultivate a positive brand image. If you don’t have one, nobody is going to want to do business with you. Cultivating a positive brand image isn’t an easy thing to do. It’s something that many people struggle with. Make sure when you are trying to improve your business’s brand image that you do a lot of customer outreach and have genuine conversations with your audience. Communicating with your audience can be a great way to get them to think more positively of you.

Promote Products and Services

You can promote your business’s products and services on social media. If you are planning on doing this, bear in mind that you’ll want to enlist a marketing company’s support. Alternatively, you can take a course in marketing yourself. The average business owner has no idea how to market the products or services that they are selling. Not knowing how to market effectively means you’ll end up making mistakes, i.e., taking poor photographs of products or posting product descriptions that don’t do your products or services any justice.

Using Online Ads

You are able to pay to have targeted advertisements posted on social media. Your advertisements will be shown to the people you have identified as your key audience. You may want to hire a marketer and pay them to help you find out who your key audience is. If you don’t know who they are and where to find them, your marketing campaigns are going to fall short. Targeted social media advertisements can be very profitable and are a great way for you to build your business’s reputation and make more sales. They can be ineffective if not used correctly, however.

Experiment with Content

Social media makes it possible for you to experiment with the content you’re putting out. Most business owners stick with one type of content (like written articles, for example). Usually, the content they stick with is a type that they have had success with in the past. You need to try different forms of content, i.e., photos and videos. Trying new types of content can be a good way for you to build brand awareness and attract people’s attention. Make sure that when you are experimenting, you do as much research as you can on the specific types of content you plan on utilizing. If you do not extensively research the content you plan on putting out, you are never going to be able to generate interest and ultimately sales from them. 

Telling Your Story

Social media can be a great place to turn to if you want to tell a story. Telling your business’s story is an extremely effective way to convince people to buy your products and services. There are many different social media platforms that you can use. One of the most popular social media platforms for businesses today is Instagram. On Instagram, you can post videos, stories, and pictures. There are many different ways that you can tell stories on this platform. If you're planning on using Instagram to market your business, make sure that you come up with an effective strategy. All of your business’s marketing content needs to be properly thought out and effectively implemented. Take a look at the social media accounts of rival businesses. Their social media accounts will give you greater insight into how you're supposed to deploy stories. Make sure that if you do draw inspiration from the social media accounts of your competitors, you do not outright steal from them.

Market Research

Social media is a great place to perform market research. You can find out what is going on in your industry and what consumers are most interested in at the time that you are conducting research. The best way to find out what is going on with your audience is to follow hashtags they are likely to follow. For example, if you sell martial arts equipment, follow hashtags dedicated to martial arts.  You can also hire a company to perform market research for you. Make sure that you extensively study social media market research so that you're able to do it effectively. If you do not perform effective market research, the insights and information that you learn won’t be useful to you. If you have any questions about the data you have gathered from market research, consider reaching out to customers you have good relationships with and asking them for insight.

Analyze Competitors

Social media is the perfect place to analyze your competitors and see how they are performing. You can take a look at how often customers are engaging with them, how regularly they are posting, and how many likes their posts are getting. If you are going to analyze your competitors, make sure you do not get caught. Additionally, if you're going to borrow their strategies, do so subtly and ensure that you do not make it obvious that you are drawing inspiration from them. Something else worth noting is that if you are going to use social media to analyze your competitors, you get the added bonus of having access to their client list (their followers). It’s not uncommon for businesses to follow the people who are following their rivals’ social media pages. Following the people who are engaging with your competitors is a great way to take them as customers. Make sure that the products and services you offer are of higher quality than the ones offered by businesses you’re competing against, though. If they are not, nobody is going to want to do business with you over your rivals.

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is something that can be very beneficial. If clients are loyal to you, they are considerably less likely to do business with your competitors. Social media is a great place to build brand loyalty since you can communicate directly with your customers, get to know them, and encourage them to purchase from your business and your business alone. Make sure that when you are talking to customers, you do not make the mistake of seeming pushy. Appearing pushy can ruin your reputation and make customers think all you want is for them to buy things from you.

Builds Relationships

Building relationships with customers has never been easier, thanks to social media. Of course, if you run a large business, you can’t respond to all messages that customers send you. However, you can appoint a social media manager and pay them to respond to them. Make sure that when messages are being responded to replies are courteous, informative, and relevant to the questions being asked. Also ensure that if a message is read, it is responded to. Many businesses make the mistake of reading messages and then forgetting to reply to them. This makes customers feel unimportant. You also need to improve relationships with your employees, which can boost their productivity. 

Selling Products

Finally, you can actually sell products on social media today. Platforms have given business owners the opportunity to create their own digital stores. If you are going to sell products on social media, bear in mind that you’ll have to pay a small percentage to the platform you are using. Ensure that when you are doing this, you price products accordingly. Bump the price up just a fraction so you can mitigate the fees imposed upon you.

Social media can propel business growth and success. If you are interested in using it to make sales, give consideration to the points made here. The tips in this post can help you to get more out of social media use. Make sure that if you are struggling with social media marketing, you enlist a professional’s help. A professional social media marketing company will be able to work with you to create an advertising plan that’s tailored to your business’s needs and goals.