Increasing the business awareness within the target public can be challenging, especially for small and medium enterprises and for business starters. The lack of proper study on the current trends and consideration on marketing networks can place one’s business in the backseat. Ineffective marketing strategy caused many financial losses to different businesses in the form of wrong campaign investments and loss of potential customers.

So, what is the best marketing channel as of today? Among the different channels of marketing such as paper, tv and display advertising, and direct marketing, social media marketing in business has been regarded as a powerful tool to boost business exposure. In a survey conducted by Forbes in 2014, most of the marketers agreed on the stupendous importance of social media marketing in business. However, many of the entrepreneurs still question the potential of social media in their ventures. Entrepreneurs are unsure of the practical advantages of the channel due to the possibility of impermanence, gray areas, and lack of social media understanding.

To alleviate the confusion, here are the 5 reasons why social media marketing in business is a must:

Improves Brand Awareness

Among the known digital marketing strategies, social media is considered one of the most cost-efficient methods. The range of the potential consumer that social media marketing can reach is vast. Social media can now gain prospects that were difficult to reach on other channels of marketing. It can widen the circle of the business’s customers.

Important points to consider in this aspect:

  • Utilize effective networks, like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to increase the visibility of your business
  • Create an interesting and concrete business profile
  • The content of your social media profile should be interesting and relevant
  • Update your feeds regularly

Encourages Brand Loyalty

Access and connectivity are two of the powerful advantages of a solid social media marketing in business. Social media channels connect the businesses to their customer, an opportunity to encourage consumers into loyal patrons. Some enterprises use some of the social media networks as a customer service platform as most of the consumers find it accessible and convenient to use. Businesses can now entertain feedbacks, concerns, and inquiries quickly, thus, improving customers’ trust.

Improves Prospects and Customers Insight

Social media can help you gauge customers’ insights about the business. It will give the entrepreneurs significant data about their clients’ interest and their clients’ behavior towards the business by means of social listening. For instance, you can check on each customer’s remark to see what the general audience think of your products and services. Business owners can create new promos or service branding attuned to what will be of interest of their prospect clients. It can help the business owners in making a decision in improving their product and services, pulling out the best way to appease their customers.

Decrease in Marketing cost

Unlike TV Commercials and radio announcement, social media marketing cost less. Most of the social networking sites offer unlimited free accounts or profile creation like Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. This will allow the business to promote and share their content with no additional cost.

Some platforms also offer innovative yet affordable services for advertising. One of the popular features in social media marketing is the audience targeting. The content, or the paid advertisement can appear on the business prospects page or accounts by accordance with the specific targets that might be interested in the products and services of the business. It maximizes the chance for a user of a competitor’s brand would switch to the one who has a better online advertising content.

Competitor monitoring venue

Most of the content in social media is available for public use. Entrepreneurs can gain valuable information about their competitors through social media monitoring. This information can help business owners in making a strategic business decision to gain competitive advantage. The business can offer product enhancements, promos, and other marketing stunts to outdo their competitors.

The key to maximizing the benefits social media marketing in business will always depend on how to manage one’s business online presence. In this age, maintaining a good online presence works like magic in generating revenues. Most of the businesses now engage in social media marketing. Social media is an open field for everyone, and an entrepreneur must invest time and money to build up a constant and engaging online presence. When done right, it can lead to more customer, more conversions, and more profit.
 
This post was originally published here. Republished on Life Is An Episode with permission of the author.