One major challenge every new business faces involves building the foundations for a strong and loyal customer base. Solving this challenge requires making the public aware of your products and services in the first place. One of the best and most cost-effective ways to start marketing your business is through social media.
With 7 in 10 Americans now using online social networking sites, social media marketing will give you the reach to effectively build your customer base. However, you can’t just assign the job to one token, “social media manager,” and call it a day. Below are a few reasons you should take the time to study and invest in the expertise and tools you need to get social media right.
1. Brand Building
Social media is the candy land of brand opportunity. If done correctly, your voice on social media can develop your brand personality. If you engage with users, you build brand authority and authenticity. Conversely, our contributor Rachel Beaird explains you can ruin your brand by doing social media marketing wrong: for one, 45% of consumers are likely to unfollow your brand if you only use social media for self-promotion.
Even computer scientist Jaron Lanier advocates deleting social media accounts in his book precisely because of the relentless, targeted ads that come about as a result. This is why it's important to interact with social media users and help them feel connected to your brand on a more personal level. Doing so strengthens your brand and gives it a foothold in the memory of your target customers.
2. Data Analytics
On social media, every interaction is quantifiable. This not only makes it easier to measure the success of your marketing efforts but also provides you with an astounding amount of valuable customer data. Most social media platforms come with built-in data analytics tools that show how users engage with your ads and help you tweak future campaigns.
Social Media Today adds that conducting competitor analyses can even help you take note of competitor weaknesses and turn them into strengths for your own marketing efforts. Most importantly, it lets you know how customers truly view your brand and gives you a clearer path to walk on toward increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
If you don’t take advantage of these tools and use them right, you lose valuable insights you could have used to promote your new business’s long-term growth sustainably.
3. Lead Generation
If done correctly, social media can help your new business generate leads on a large scale. By engaging customers and measuring their engagement, you can better build credibility and generate more leads. Highly-interactive social media allows you to nurture these leads further and convert them into sales. Authors David and Reiko Scott recommend leveraging customer emotions, and their book Fanocracy focuses on the neuroscience of fandom and how it can be converted into buying power.
Posting clickable content, sharing customer testimonials, offering discount codes, and organizing contests or sweepstakes can elicit such emotions and generate leads. However, it’s important not to follow up on leads with a heavy hand. Customers may see this as spamming, negating all the possible benefits social media offers for lead generation and nurturing. Social media marketing isn’t as clear-cut as it appears at first glance, and many nuances can blur the line between the success and failure of your campaigns.
For the above reasons, you can fully benefit from social media if done right — and give your new business a leg up to stand out from your competitors.
