20 Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Business

If you’re hesitating to increase your business’s budget for social marketing, we understand your concerns. Social media can feel overwhelming, time-consuming, and downright confusing. As a business owner, you don’t have time to learn the latest TikTok trends – how does that impact your bottom line? If your ideal customer is an older audience, social media can feel even less relevant to your mission.

However, not everything on social media is about TikTok dances or Tiger King. Consumers use social media to make buying decisions, and the majority of your customers will make a decision about your brand before they’ve even visited your website. 

Here are the stats: 71% of consumers are more likely to buy if they have been referred from social media, and another study found that 74% of consumers rely on social media to research their purchasing options (ODM Group). 

Maybe now more than ever, there are fantastic benefits to marketing your product or service through social media channels. We’ve divided the top social media benefits for business by:

1. Benefits to your ROI
2. Advantages of social media monitoring and listening
3. Benefits for brand awareness and growth
4. Advantages of online review management

Benefits to your ROI

Quantify your ROI more than any other marketing effort

Qualifying the impact of traditional media is nearly impossible: you cast a wide net through tv commercials or a radio spot, and have to hope that customers see/hear it and respond. 

By contrast, with an effective social media campaign, you can track what actions that piece of content led someone to take (reshare, follow you, visit your website, make a purchase, etc.). 

Social media management companies like ICUC provide clients with in-depth social media reporting at no additional cost. Easily connect your social channels to your website, third-party review platforms, and any other online presence to get a full-picture view of your online reputation.

Retarget customers who’ve visited your site but never purchased anything

Retargeting campaigns are a golden opportunity for social media marketing. Your business can sell up to 50% more by leveraging retargeting methods. 

Retailers track visits to their channels via “cookies” in the browser, and big social networks like Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter will show ads to the (often large) percentage of your visitors who browse but don’t buy. Social media retargeting gives you a second, even third or fourth, chance to capture potential customers that were interested in your product.

Easily understand why your top-performing content did so well

Top performing content on social media is easy to quantify. Not only do you have vanity metrics such as likes that can show you what people are enjoying, you also get immediate feedback through comments, shares, and follows. 

Lower advertising costs than traditional media

Every other type of advertising medium requires higher front-end investment. Reserving a TV commercial slot or producing a radio ad will cost you thousands of dollars upfront, not to mention the additional costs of casting, production, and post-production (editing). 

Social platforms are (mostly) free

Social media platforms are mostly free to use (unless you create a paid ad campaign), but even these costs are substantially lower than other advertising. Content production costs are significantly more economical: with just an iPhone and a laptop, you can create high-quality content that your following will love and share.

Better for search engine optimization (SEO) and rank higher in Google

You might not think your Facebook posts have anything to do with search engine optimization (SEO), but social metrics are indirectly connected to your Google ranking position. 

While Google has stated that social media is not a ranking factor, studies have found that the “correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high” (Searchmetrics).

These two are connected because a large amount of social shares is an indication of the quality of your brand content. People are liking and sharing what you’re producing, which means they are more likely to link to your website, where the real “SEO juice” comes from: link building.

Cost-effective lead generation tool

Social media is a highly cost-effective way to generate leads. Social media drives content to your website and brings customers into your sales funnel. 

The niche audience that you build in your social media following will be more receptive to your brand than any other marketing funnel you could hope to create.

Increase your product sales

All of your hard work in social media marketing will produce sales. Telling your company’s story on social media, and connecting with other people who resonate with your product/service, builds a like-minded community that becomes ambassadors for your brand’s mission. 

Social media becomes an invaluable resource of WOM connection, trusted reviews, and loyal customers invested in your success.

Advantages of social media monitoring and listening

Differentiate yourself from your competitors

By harnessing social listening power, a social media team can track conversations about your marketplace and gain valuable insights into opportunities to differentiate yourself from your competition. 

Collaborate with an influencer in your niche

Like it or not, influencer marketing has great power, and it’s here to stay. Nearly half of all shopping consumers rely on an influencer’s recommendation before making a purchase. Social media allows you to collaborate with relevant influencers impacting your niche audience.

Monitor social conversations relevant to your brand

Social listening informs your business on strategic decisions for your digital presence and brand reputation. 

It certainly made a difference for one of our clients, the FIFA World Cup. For the last FIFA World Cup, ICUC analyzed all incoming conversations and then provided daily reports on key matches, players and incidents to support communications planning. The result? The big data reassured FIFA that any new marketing strategies would resonate with their audience.

Have a positive impact on current world issues

A study on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in 2017 found that 63% of American shoppers want businesses to take a stance on social and environmental issues. 

If you are passionate about a particular issue that aligns with your brand values, audiences want to hear about it – and will buy more because of it. Not only that, but you will be helping bring awareness to positive change in the world.

Benefits for brand awareness and growth

Target niche audiences that couldn’t otherwise be captured

Niche marketing produces more loyal followers, happier customers and better sales. Social media platforms like Facebook have Audience Insights that allow you to deep dive into understanding your audience and their interests, preferences, even dislikes. Paid advertisers can target these audience segments with highly specialized content.

Create an online community for your customers to connect based on their shared interests

Your brand identity will bring like-minded people together, fostering a new online community where your customers can connect based on their shared interests. Many active social media channels host private Facebook groups for their following to further grow their fanbase.  

Establish your brand as an authoritative source and thought leader

Spark conversations in your industry, and people will begin to take notice. You can harness the power of social media to become an authoritative source of information for your niche. 

Increase traffic to your website or blog

Unless you’re focusing heavily on SEO (which social media can also positively impact!), you will need a social presence to get your website noticed. Drive new users to your latest blog post through promotion on your social media profiles. This is an age-old digital marketing tactic, and it still works wonders today.  

Build brand loyalty and tell your story

Social media allows a brand to communicate on a “human” level. The concept of a “brand identity” is to give your company a distinctive personality that your audience will resonate with. Whether you want to be as savage as Wendy’s twitter account, or as friendly and feminine as FabFitFun, your brand voice on social media plays a crucial role in establishing your company identity to the world.

Advantages of online review management

Provide unbiased reviews (information) on your business

One of the newer ways people use social media is to decide on the credibility of a business. A strong social presence, paired with a substantial number of unbiased reviews on your channels, helps build trust for your company online.

Most effective crisis communication tool for brands

Today, people expect businesses to be providing customer service on their social pages. When monitored consistently and effectively, social media can be one of the most effective crisis communication tools. Quickly gauge public sentiment around your brand through analytics analysis.

With ICUC review management services, our global agency of digital communication experts monitor all your product and business listing reviews. Our team will manage and respond to all your online feedback, to improve reputation and increase sales.

Respond quickly to customer complaints and concerns

Keep your customers up-to-date on changing policies and quickly respond to complaints and concerns voiced via social media. People will talk about your company on social media, whether you’re there to answer or not! 

Offering customers real-time information on products and services will increase profits for your company. If customers have a positive experience, they’ll drive new business, creating more opportunities. Consequently, this improves revenue and increases ROI.

How has social media marketing benefited your business?

Social media marketing is one of the most important, cost-effective business tools in today’s marketplace. With the uncertainty of today’s world, customers’ reliance on information from their social platforms is unprecedented. Social distancing practices have heightened our dependence on virtual connection and communication. 

Are you reaping the benefits of social media marketing for your business? Are there more advantages you’ve discovered that we haven’t listed? Let us know in the comments.

Still not sure about social media marketing?

If keeping up with online reviews, customer requests, giving feedback, and creating content sound too overwhelming – let us do the heavy lifting. ICUC is a leading social media management agency providing community management, social listening services, review management, etc.