Don’t Be Flaky: 3 Reasons to Stick to Consistent Social Media
by admin
Posted on July 17, 2017 at 17:28 PM
It seems like everyone uses social media on the regular these days. Even your great aunt Claudine checks it three times a day, and not just one platform – she’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. She watches about a dozen videos per day, most housed on YouTube and embedded through her news feeds. This is the average social media user profile.
It goes without saying that businesses big and small have to have a presence on social media, no questions asked. Even today, however, many businesses still struggle with creating a steady, constant presence online, which begs the question – what’s goin’ on, Donkey Kong? Why is it so important if you’re not seeing a jump in sales from your efforts? The answer lies in your strategy. Let’s go over three reasons why businesses should get it together on social media.
You need organic brand awareness.
Social media creates an awesome opportunity for your brand to have a consistent look, feel, and voice. Due to the many platforms available, there are no limits to the kinds of communication you can have with your prospective or current customers. Putting your brand front and center on a regular basis is crucial to top-of-mind awareness because let’s face it, you can’t expect your customers to always visit your website unprompted. By creating a unified brand presence across these platforms, you can communicate to a variety of different users, whether it’s a video on Facebook, a quick snap of your product or service features on Snapchat, or a beautiful staged photo on Instagram. Social media puts a personal touch on your brand, and allows your customers to feel connected to you as a business.
What is most obvious as a major perk to using social media for marketing? It’s completely free.
You can use social media as a customer service tool.
Consumers like direct access to the brands and companies they are loyal to, and aside from feeling a personal connection on social media, companies can leverage this connectivity as a way to provide excellent customer service. When consumers can send a direct message via social platforms, and actually receive an answer quickly, they are much more likely to end the interaction with a positive impression. This doesn’t mean you have to be on call all the time; Facebook, for example, has rolled out an auto-response feature that can alert the sender that you’ll get back to them at a specified time. If you make the claim, however, be sure you honor it. Similarly, when comments on social media are acknowledged by a business, the customer will naturally feel more validated and heard, increasing their sense of loyalty to the brand and overall feel good vibes. And who wouldn’t want the warm fuzzies?
You can make more money. Duh.
There are a number of ways that you can use social media to increase your bottom line. More importantly, you can gather vital information from your target audience by just listening and responding to interactions through your platforms. For example, offering a poll or contest is a free, fun way to determine whether or not to roll out a new product or service, or to see if an existing service might be worth expanding or nixing. These contests could include further expanding your reach by turning your customers into your ambassadors. A good example of this would be Instagram contests or giveaways in which a user has to tag three new people to your post, share your post, etc. You have given them the power of advertising for you, endorsing you, and supporting you – without spending a dime. You can then promote your product or service to a wider audience, creating warm leads and ending with more sales.
There are also a number of ways that paid social media campaigns can be very successful for your business, but that’s another blog. Being consistent with your messaging online is fundamental in leading more people to your website or storefront. Transparent communication in an open forum is practically the norm for many businesses now, so if you aren’t regularly visible and talkative on social media yet, you are losing business to the guys who are.
