Gone are the days when it was not possible to share your opinions openly and publicly.

With social media networks entering almost every aspect of our lives, consumers enjoy a completely different situation — they can easily express their satisfaction, criticism, or praise by commenting on social media.

As a result, this has had a major impact on customer satisfaction and brought the customers and brands much closer. In addition, this has allowed them to start building a relationship allowing both sides to share their opinions publicly.

According to the Sprout Social Index, the share of people who said they increased their spending with a brand rose from 12% to 75 % from 2019 to this year.

Plus, the pandemic has forced many marketers to start changing their social media strategy and start engaging with their customers even more on different social media channels, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter.

By all means, social media will continue to be the number one marketing channel in digital marketing, and marketers always need to find ways to step up their game to be able to enhance their customer engagement and satisfaction.

To help you get the bigger picture of why social media sharing is important for both brands and consumers, we’ve compiled a list of reasons why you need to leverage its power to get ahead of the curve.

1. Consumers learn about Brands on social media

Social media is the ideal place for your existing and future customers to learn more about your brand and what makes you stand out from the rest on the market.

In the age where video streaming has become a key way to reach out to your audience, we do not have to read so much content. Instead, we can simply choose the content we want from the library of the ever-increasing commercial-free content.

Simultaneously, TV and radio seem to be less popular, especially among younger audiences, so if you are looking for a channel where you would like to make more serious investments, start considering the social media networks.

As a matter of fact, 55% of consumers are Gen Z and Millennials, and they are much more likely to find out about new brands on social media. On top of this, it is predicted that social media networks will continue growing and reach 243 million users by 2025 in the U.S. alone.

So, if you still haven’t considered focusing your efforts on growing your social media networks, do it right away because those consumers will start looking for your competitors.

1. Social Media shows the world who You are

Social media allows you to highlight the best aspects of your brand and provide the answers to the most common questions your consumers ask.

Social media is the ideal channel for all of your existing and potential customers to find you and learn more about your business.

On top of this, social media gives you a chance to demonstrate your expertise and produce and promote content that will explain your brand’s core values, increase your brand’s visibility and build your authority on the ever-increasing market.

Besides showing the world who you are, you can also use social media networks to differentiate your business from the competition and emphasize that your brand personality is clearly defined.

You want to show the world that you are keeping up with the latest trends and not lagging behind.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to sound authentic on your social media — this way, you can connect with your audience more easily and more closely.

1. Build an Online Community

Another great thing about social media is that it gives you an opportunity to create an online community where you can connect with your current and potential customers and build strong relationships with them.

You can choose any social media channel where you can build your online groups, but you have to choose the ones that match your audiences’ preferences. One thing you need to keep in mind here is that you should not create these groups to promote your brand.

You want to create groups to reach out to your audience and give them a chance to ask you any questions about your product or service.

Also, you want to connect group members and share the content they would want to read so that they start commenting on posts and sharing them with friends. This is how you extend your reach and boost your brand’s visibility across social media channels.

Plus, social shares will increase your brand’s organic reach.

1. Diversify your Content

As mentioned above, you need to choose the channels where you want to communicate with your audience.

Different channels can be used for different kinds of messages. Also, this allows you to use different kinds of content and different forms of content, including infographics, white papers, blogs, videos, gifs, and so on.

Here are a few things you should know about the content you can post on different social media channels:

• Twitter has a limited number of characters you can use in your messages, which means you need to be concise and clear, and sometimes informal.

• Facebook allows you to post different kinds of content, including videos, articles, pictures, and share them with just one click. You can reach out to a large audience in this way as most of the things published are made public.  

• Instagram is a great hub for anyone to post photos on their feed or create videos and stories.

• LinkedIn is the ideal channel if you want to extend your professional network.

• TikTok is a new social media channel and a great way to reach out to a younger audience. Also, since this platform is relatively new, anything you promote on TikTok will definitely have a great impact on your brand’s visibility.

However, keep in mind that how you communicate with your audience on one channel will not necessarily resonate with your audience on other channels. So, you need to adapt your content to the channel you are using.

Suppose you realize that you are not able to dedicate much of your time to creating content for social media. In that case, you should reach out to agencies that offer digital marketing services and web design in Chicago to help you reach your goals.

1. Social Media Data is Used to Inform Business Decisions

According to recent studies, social media data is used as the top source for making business decisions, even more than results gained through market research. 85% of executives believe that social media will be the main source of business intelligence. As a result, businesses are looking for ways to leverage the full power of social media to drive results and get ahead of their competition.

Although it is very hard to fight the competition and stand out on the market, marketers can cut through the white noise using their social and analytics tools. This way, they gather invaluable insights, which they can then use to create strategies that will help them differentiate their business.

1. Social Media Gives a Better Search Engine Visibility

Social media can significantly enhance your reach and have a positive impact on your SEO.

The more likes, shares, and comments you get, the more likely Google will be to drive sizable traffic to your social media channels, increasing your visibility and reach.

1. Social Media Lets You Grow Affordably

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While social media is not the ideal place to drive new sales, it can contribute to increasing your sales, and this should not be ignored. Cross-channel retargeting, shoppable posts, videos with CTAs, and sponsored info on timelines are all great ways to increase sales.

Also, you can get a lot of value through your social media advertising. You can do this on all social media channels, including Instagram, which is mainly used for engagement.

But, keep in mind that when you are creating an ad campaign, you need to know who you are trying to target and what goals you are trying to achieve so that you would not waste your money.

The bottom line is that your business, whether it is a startup or a big corporation, has an opportunity to leverage social media to grow sales.

1. What’s your Next Step?

Businesses are starting to realize the great importance of social media. It allows them to rely on social data to build new strategies that will help them position themselves on the market and improve their ROI in the long run.

Businesses that do not use the power of social media to increase their brand visibility, brand awareness and engage existing and new audiences will be left behind.

Also, by establishing a two-way communication with your audience, you will build trust and increase your customers’ loyalty. Prove that you care about their opinions. Of course, there are multiple ways to experiment with the various social media techniques and tools to achieve the desired results.

Author bio

Rick Seidl is a digital marketing specialist with a bachelor’s degree in Digital Media and Communications, based in Portland, Oregon. With a burning passion for digital marketing, social media, small business development and establishing its presence in a digital world, currently quenching his thirst through writing about digital marketing and business strategies for DigitalStrategyOne.

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