Have you been toying with the idea of using social media for your business? Are you trying to figure out if social media is worth your time and investment? If you answered "Yes," then this article is for you. We will show you the benefits of social media management for business and how to apply social media strategy to grow your business. But before going any further, let us tell you, in simple terms, what social media management is.
Social media management is the process of what and how to talk with your online customers through social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and so on. You communicate with online clients because you want them to know about your business and to buy your products or services. Social media will, thus, help you to grow your customer base while at the same time improving or maintaining your company's brand.
If you are not on social media, then this is the right time for you to stake your claim. You should have your presence felt in the social media scene because, if people don't see you out there, they cannot be your customers. Now how can your business benefit from social media?
In a research of 2019, it was revealed the 3.5 billion users are active on social media. To get the best outcomes from social media, you need to manage the process well.
Social media management in a business will include selecting the right media platforms, creating and posting content, engaging with the online audience, and evaluating the process for its effectiveness.
We are sure you are familiar with many social media platforms and likely you a personal media account in one or more of those platforms. And if the statistics have to be believed then 54% of people use social media to review a product or service. That's a lot of people and ignoring this fact can leave a lot of revenue untouched. The truth about social media platforms is that each has its inherent strength and weakness. Thus, selecting the right channel for your business is critical. Often you will find it beneficial to use one or more of these social networking platforms. The reason is that you will leave out a portion of your audience if you rely on only one platform. So among the many platforms which are best for business?
That's a good question because you want to use a channel that most of your customers use. It will be the one that's most effective and has the highest returns on your investment.
To identify the right channel, you first have to create a persona of your ideal customer. What are the characteristics of your customers? In terms of their gender, income, education level, where they live, their interests, likes, dislikes, and so on?
Once you have the customers' profile, you need to evaluate the media channels to see which channel your client is more likely to be using. You will likely find that your customer is a good fit for maybe two or three social media networks. Those are the ones you should start with to market your business. When you use social media, you will be taking your products and services to where your customers are instead of waiting for them to find you.
Content refers to the information that you share with your audience. It can be through blog posts (like this one), landing pages, white papers, press releases, podcasts, videos, e-books, and so on. Content serves a vital marketing role. You inform the audience about your products and services through the content you post on your company profile. More importantly, your content should address your customers' challenges and how your services or products will help to solve those problems.
Typically you engage your online audience through regular content that you post on social media platforms. And the critical about content is quality. You are better off with one quality post per week or month rather than flooding your profile with gibberish that no one will want to read. But what is good quality content? Good quality content is fresh, evergreen, helpful, and appealing. It generates a buzz among your audience. Your audience will share it widely. Ultimately, golden content will help your company to develop new leads and close sales.
Interacting with your online customers is an essential aspect of social media management.
Often your customers will raise issues and concerns about your products and services. So it will be your responsibility to address those problems quickly and adequately. It will prove your excellent customer service and provides value for your leads.
You need to make it a routine to check for messages or comments in all your social platforms and respond appropriately with respect as you would in a face to face interaction. Even when the customers are toxic, or they throw undesirable comments at you. You need to handle customers with grace, sensitivity, and try to be as helpful as possible. Remember the adage which says the customer is always right? Your business can not afford to alienate any current or potential customer.
This aspect of social media management might take a significant chunk of your time and can, at times, be emotionally draining. But you don't have to do everything alone. Our specialists at Codehawker can help to manage your social media accounts and interact with your customers.
Now it's time we share some of the significant benefits your business reaps when you use social media.
Social media gives you a platform to reach millions of customers: Consider this - at least 3.48 billion people worldwide use social media. That's roughly 45 percent of the world population. And the trend is on an upward trajectory, with one million people joining the social media daily. Let's dig deeper into some popular social media channels.
Facebook is the largest social network worldwide, with 2.45 billion active users each month. In India, 22 percent of the population, or 303,820,000 people use Facebook. Among them, 64,000,000 are men aged between 25 and 34 years. Facebook is a great channel if you want your business to reach a large group of the population. Through Facebook, you can communicate directly with your target customers and give them useful information about your business.
On the other hand, your Facebook fans’ interaction, comments, and feedback can tell you a lot about your products or services. The fans can tell you what they like, don’t like, and what you need to change to make your products or services more acceptable. Facebook can increase online visits to your business website or blog if search engines index the posts, links, and other actions on your Facebook page. If you are not on Facebook, you are handing over an advantage to your competition. They are already on Facebook.
This channel is quite popular in the country. There are 155 430 000 Instagram users (11.2%) of the population, of whom 87.2 % are between 25 and 34 years. Instagram enables your customers to actually “see” your business. And this is because Instagram mainly focuses on photos. And people are most likely to comment on what they see, making Instagram one of the social media channels with a highly engaged audience. It allows you to respond quickly to clients’ concerns, improving your customer relations.
By 2019 this online news and the social network had 34 million active users in the country. Twitter is where you can share your business with a massive audience in kind of a public setting. Your customers and potential clients hold the twitter discussions in a public forum, so they give you instant feedback. Twitter encourages openness and accountability. You can feel the pulse of your business. Folks go to twitter for the latest news and trends, and you can take advantage of Twitter to introduce new products.
LinkedIn has 645 million users worldwide, out of whom 61 million are from India. LinkedIn provides a professional job networking service where you can share B2B content.
YouTube
YouTube lets you share videos about your business. Online video hosting services can help you to launch or promote your company’s products and services. YouTube can also help you to express your brand personality. YouTube also makes it easy to track feedback. It enables you to give superb customer service, and your customers can spread the word about your company.
YouTube lets you share videos about your business. Online video hosting services can help you to launch or promote your company’s products and services. YouTube can also help you to express your brand personality. YouTube also makes it easy to track feedback. It enables you to give superb customer service, and your customers can spread the word about your company.
Monitoring allows your business to evaluate each campaign and determine its importance in driving leads. Social media channels allow easy tracking of your marketing tactics and practices. Besides tracking your business, social media can help you to track the performance of your competition.
Your competitors' objectives are similar to yours. That is to establish and protect the business as well as sell products and services. So if you know what is doing well on your competitor's site, you can copy that and improve on it. You want to offer better services to your clients across the board.
You can know how useful your social media campaign has been if you look at the available data. Indeed you should analyze the data to understand who is visiting your site, where they come from, where they shop, and the type of services they look for, and so on. Analyzing such data will help you to refine your messaging. And what's more? You can target customers in a specific region or country.
Social media is dynamic and keeps on evolving. A social media platform can trend today and become obsolete within no time. Your social media strategy should be able to adapt to current trends while anticipating and forecasting future trends.
If you are not yet into the social media bandwagon, you're shortcutting your business in the ever-expanding digital world. Your business can leverage the surging popularity of social media to engage with your audience and market your products and services.
Effective social media management requires time.
Also, social media channels continuously evolve, requiring new skill sets. That's why your business needs a social media manager. Our professional team at Code Hawker will be more than happy to help develop your social media strategy. Call us on +919720077800 for consultation.
