Social media is a powerful platform for marketers to reach out to prospects. They can be used for direct marketing as well as to maintain public relations. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two most leading social media platforms used for marketing. It is found that most of the users use social media for researching brand, products or services before making the decision to buy.
People were doubtful about social media marketing at first, but they were proven wrong as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter among others became a hit among brands.
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The following are 8 ways business stand to benefit from implementing social media marketing:
Helps to cut the overall marketing costs
Social networks are one of the best cost-effective methods to popularize your brand among target customers. The overhead cost for tweeting a message, promoting through Facebook or pinning a photo of the product to Pinterest is minimal when compared to billboards, TV and newspaper ads.
If you have marketing budget, social media channels will offer advanced but affordable advertising which target the audience by using keywords, interest based and demographic campaigns. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook offer more specific parameters for targeting.
One needs to create compelling and optimized content to make the domain seem high up on the search results page. By sharing this content through various social portals, they can capture the interest of readers who may visit, like or share content on the website and link to it from their own domains. Search engines such as Google and Bing consider these social signals to rank on the search results page.
Social media marketing is extremely useful and beneficial to discuss customer comments, concerns and questions. Customers can directly interact with owners through platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Owners can answer them in a public format so that other customers can realize the quality of company’s customer service. Quicker responses can be delivered by brands to customers through social media. This helps in building brand awareness.
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Provides an opportunity to associate with other businesses
Through social media, a company can not only interact with consumers, but also with entrepreneurs and owners of other businesses. They help to have a real conversation with important personalities who may not otherwise be accessible socially or globally in the real world.
By allowing customers to directly interact with company, they are able to get the best customer service. Each and every response of customers is seen by the public. Hence if one of the customers appreciates the service of the company, it will directly show in the good online reputation of the company.
Helps to gain competitive advantage
Social media marketing helps to cope with competition by connecting with current and prospective customers in an organic way across the web. It can help boost search rankings, connect with new business partners, offer better customer service, and thus create a better online personality.
So, if you haven’t started marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Pinterest among others, you might be missing some real opportunities. So, start now! Better late than never.
