Social networks are vibrant and constantly evolving. Yet the fact today is that Social media is beyond adding friends and sharing status. More and more people are getting involved in this area to perk up theirbusiness. Be it small business or huge, the adoption of social media is just augmenting with time that because of the outcome it has to offer. Some of the reason for businesses to get involve may include, getting new customers, increase awareness and stay connected. According to Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, there are five major uses for businesses and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead gen tool to intercept potential prospects
We also know some companies that have made excellent use of social media to establish themselves. If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is an effective method that would make your site profitable over time. So the important factor here is to know why any company would need to incorporate social media into their ideas and strategies. Once that is clearyour quantifying gains become a much simpler task. Let’s now have a look at some of the reasons why a company might use social media and how the approach is different:
10 Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business
1. High Traffic and Links
By using Social Media methods you can bring high traffic to your site. They are of two kinds one is primary traffic where you get direct visitors from social networking sites and then we have secondary traffic, which is actually indirect referral traffic from websites which is linked to and send you visitors. By becoming popular on top social bookmarking sites can boost your site traffic visibly and bring you large number of links, sometimes may not even be relevant, yet useful.
2. Cost Effective Method
A wide-ranging Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy could certainty provide a full or at least partial replacement to traditional advertising at fraction of costs when compared. Social media, which tends to have lower costs than other forms of marketing could be beyond doubt cost effective for those required to get customers spreading and sharing messages. Then again, marketers should be careful, because doing it in a wrong way would result in more work, and at times, brand backlash.
3. Direct Conversation
Conversation is the most important part in any kind of business and Social Media is a source that let you to have direct conversation with your customers. One way it will help you is by providing the products and services they desire and secondly you can get their feedback and ideas to improve further. And these days as social media is more about demographic so marketers are more viable to get new target audience, or new people to do business with. Chrisbrogan writer of Trust Agent shares 50 ways marketers can usesocial media to improve marketing.
4. Powerful Recommendation
Anybody rather than buying from a company who is faceless would prefer going by some recommendation. Yes, of course even in our daily life we believe to purchase in what is been recommended to us. As we know that influencers play a vital role in buying process, one way you can reach your audience is withSocial Media. Once you are popular and trusted there, your brand will automatically be suggested to other connected links. Understand it is not about pushing your message, but putting forward a positive image always, building trust and value, and attracting the right clients to you like a magnet.
5. Shaping Relationships
There are ways you can be social without social media , but the initial goal behind networking online is to build relationships that can be the most effective way towards successful business. You can look at bloggers who are making the best use of it by the RSS feed reader, where one can read the post as soon as published on the blog they admire, which can further be commented on. But through Social media – especially Twitter and Facebook, you can have direct conversation with many bloggers and audiences to shape your relations further in also about 140 characters. That’s the power of social networking forbusiness.
6. Chance To Improve
With Social Media sites you have the biggest market research company at your finger tips. Can there be a better way to improve your offering than by getting direct feedback from your consumers? Obviously not, because with valuable feedback from the customers you have a chance to improve your product and services carving their needs. But be careful while working on their wants, it could be difficult to filter out pointer and work on the valuable ones.
7. Enhance Brand Exposure and Loyalty
Social Media is the quickest way to enhance personal branding, which also makes it easy to track socialmedia buzz around your brand and monitor it. You have higher exposure to your brand with online networking, and with spread you can gather hundreds if not thousands of prospect, and among them at least one web 2.0 company will become a loyal customer for your ongoing annual revenue. Don’t forget to take personal care of your customers, even by adding online events and responding to your users can build loyalty.
8. Time Saving Element
It is always said that everything on Social Network is quick and that holds true for any kind of business too. SMM is unquestionably cost effective from monetary point of view, because it actually does not cost anything and it is also effective from time perspective when compare to traditional marketing methods. All that a business owners need to do is their homework and to make sure they are spending their time in the top social sites in their particular industry niche and their specific business requirements.
9. Get Connected To Your Peers
Social Media again gives you a quick chance to get connected to your peers when required. For example, a web designers, developer and programmer can get help for any related issues just by a tweet message on twitter or status update on Facebook. You can always count on Social Networks for help on any particular issues at the same time you can offer help when required by your peers. While it might take time to get connected to people on other sources, social media work like cream!
10. Obvious ROI
It goes without saying that if you focus on your audiences, customers and add value to their lives, you will surely attract followers. They will soon become your fan and start trusting your brand, which in turn gets you more leads. So all you need to do after that is to measure your Social Media ROI.
It’s Your Turn
So let us know, which of the social media sites you love? How do you use it for your business and how does that help? What’s your strategy and idea? Share and help us grow via comment!