The Importance Of Social Media When Starting Your Business
When starting a new business many people overlook the importance of social media. It can be seen as something of an extra, something they’ll do later once they’re up and running and a trivial part of a business that is for teenagers and young people. However, these business owners could not be more wrong and if they refuse to take social media seriously they will miss out on huge amounts of sales and opportunities. Luckily you don’t have to be a social media expert to reap the benefits of social media as you can hire a social media agency to do the work for you.
If you’re starting a new business then make sure that your social media is high up on your to-do list. Did you know that there are over three billion people now using social networks all over the world? They’re not just using it to show photos of their lives either, but they are using it to engage with brands. Can your business really afford not to be one of them? According to Hootsuite, a social media management platform, on Instagram alone, 80 per cent of people follow at least one business and according to Sherpa Marketing, more people follow brands on social media than they follow celebrities.
Social Media has completely changed the way people not only communicate but the way they do business, the way they shop and the way they meet people. It’s changed the way people live. Today, your customers expect you to be on social media and if you’re not, they’ll find someone else who is. Facebook has over 500 million active users, and they spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. Twitter has over 100 million users who tweet 55 million tweets a day. LinkedIn has over 75 million members in over 200 countries. This is continuing to grow all the time, and that is where your customers and clients are. This is how to access them and to speak to them.
It is just normal now for people to be sat on the bus, sitting on the sofa, walking down the street or waiting for their friend to come back from the bar and scrolling through social media and it is your business and your messages that people need to be seeing when they are doing this.
Social Media Humanises Your Brand
According to a UK study from Trinity Mirror Solutions, more than half of adults do not trust a brand until they see “real-world proof” that the brand is keeping its promises. This is where social media can be a huge help as you can use it to show the human side of your business. You can use it to show what goes on behind the scenes, the people who work for you, show that you are real people who are working hard for your customers.
Social Media Makes It Easier For Your Customers To Communicate With You
These days you customers expect to be able to communicate with you in real-time and while this might be more demanding for you, if you’re active on social media and responding to your customer’s questions and queries then this will improve your reputation but it will increase your brand awareness. It will also mean that you can deal with issues as they arise to stop them from getting out of hand.
Social Media Improves Your Customer Service
Being active on social media and engaging with your customers means that you can give them better customer service because as mentioned you can respond to customers quicker and build rapport with them. Even if you just respond to their nice comments with a ‘like’ or comment yourself, it shows your customers that you care about them and acknowledge them.
Social Media Creates Invaluable Data
Do you realise how much information people give away about themselves on social media? If your business is on social media and interacting with people, then you can gather invaluable data about who your customers and audience are. You can find out how old they are, where they live, what hobbies they are into and what other brands they like. Once you have this information you can use to give your customers and potential customers what they want and tailor your social media plans and messages to your target audience. This can also help you to build strong relationships and engage with your customers on a more personal level.
Social Media Is a Great Place To Promote Your Business
There are plenty of options for advertising on social media and not only are they inexpensive but they are highly targeted so that your ads are only going to those who are interested or might benefit from your product or service. Aside from just promoting your business and offers though, as this content can be pretty boring for social media users, social media provides an excellent platform for you to show off what you’re good at. It’s a place to promote your blogs, videos, photos, to show people what you do on a daily basis, who your team are and what your business culture is.
Social Media Is A Great Place To Source Content
As well as being somewhere you can promote your content, social media is also a great place to find inspiration and to source content for your business. When you go on Twitter you can immediately see the hashtags that are trending and you instantly know what everyone is talking about. This could be something you could jump on and relate to your business giving you ideas for your own posts or even blog ideas. Another thing you can do with social media is something called social listening which allows you to “listen” to what people are talking about on social and can then give you ideas for content. It means you can give them something they would want to read and want to share.
Don’t put social media to one side, when it comes to business planning it is essential if you’re not present then you’ll probably never get the chance to go viral.