Posts, likes, shares, comments, tweets, +1s! If you thought that’s all social media platforms are about, you were wrong. Apart from showing off your location and status to the world, social media platforms are also among the best means to enhance your business.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is. It is what customers tell each other it is”- Scott Cook

Social media platforms are viewed as the “next big thing” by entrepreneurs mainly because it is where most of the potential customers will be since majority of the world are Internet users. But, some people disagree with that. They feel that social media marketing doesn’t really bring any huge difference to their business.

However, the statistics say something different… (source)

In 2014,

92% marketers felt that social media marketing was important for their business and out of the 92%, 80% of the marketers felt that social media marketing has increased traffic to their website.

97% marketers have already set their foot in the world of social media marketing. But 85% of them are still not sure of which social media tools to use to yield best results.

The statistics themselves reveal the potential of social media marketing and its positive effect on business.

Social media marketing can help you retain customers in the following ways:

Brand recognition

You should never spare an opportunity to show off your content and earn a place for yourselves amongst the crowd. Social media networks are the best platforms you can opt for to earn recognition for your brand. Not only does it help you to grab the attention of new customers, but also familiarizes  existing customers with your business.

Brand loyalty

Social media networks can be used to build a sense of trust and likeness among your customers since it enables you to connect directly to your audience. Therefore, utilizing the social media tools to the fullest and a finely planned and executed marketing strategy can influence your customers to stay loyal to your brand.

More chances to convert leads to business

The content you post in your social media platform is an opportunity for you to convert your site visitors to paying customers.  Through social media marketing, you get to interact with your customers. You get to know their reaction to your products and for almost every positive interaction, conversion is possible.

Higher conversion rates

Social media marketing can result in higher conversion rates. Also, it helps in improvising your brand according to the taste of the customer. Since you get to interact with the customers through social media networks, you can know about what they like and dislike about your product. Also interaction with your customers can help you in building trust and faith in the customer’s minds. Thus you can build a greater audience and improve your conversion rates.

Higher brand authority

You might have seen how people appreciate or criticize a brand in social media platforms. Keeping the negative feed backs apart, every time they mention the name of your brand, it is marketing and it compels others to keep themselves updated about what is happening to your brand. You can use this opportunity to interact with people on a regular manner and earn their faith.

Increased inbound traffic

Without social media marketing, inbound traffic to your site may be restricted to your already existing customers. Every profile you create on social media platforms link back to your website and the content that you post there will help you earn new customers.  Inbound traffic also depends on the quality of content you post. With better quality content, you will be able to enjoy better inbound traffic leading to higher conversion rates.

Lesser marketing costs

According to 84% of the marketers around the world, taking an effort of 6 hours per week itself can result in an increase in traffic. Spend a couple of hours to plan and another couple of hours to create quality content. That’s all you may need to start seeing desired results and it is not much of an effort. Once your brand is popular, you need not spend more on marketing it.

Improved Search Engine Rankings

Search engine rankings play an important role in earning you permanent customers and enhancing your business. People tend to notice your business only if the website appears in the first two pages of the search engine. Criteria such as regular updating of blogs, optimization of tags, sites pointing to your website, content that is not plagiarized etc. are not the only things that are considered by Google while ranking your website these days. Since almost every brand uses social media to promote, the presence of your business on social media might have an influence on your website’s Google page rank too. Being active in social media gives search engines a signal that your brand can be trusted and is loyal.

Interaction with customers

Social media is a communication platform just like telephones and e-mails.  You can interact directly with your customers and know their opinions on your product and their expectations. You tend to provide customer care at a personal level in social media networks and thereby prove that your brand is trustworthy. If a person complains about your product via social media, you can address the issue in a very short time and try to solve it. Or if a customer appreciates you, you can thank them and offer information about additional products from your brand.

Customer Insights

When you market your product through print ads or TV ads, you have to wait for a long period to know about the customer reaction. You need not wait that long when it comes to social media. You can read customer opinion in the form of comments. You can analyse what they want and improvise your products accordingly. You’ll get to know the contents that interest the customers and thus improve the content you post. At the end, all these interactions help you create a strategy that can help you enhance your business.

If you are still not sure about using social media for business, you need to know the following things

The competition is on

While you stay away from social media, there already exists an intense competition between different brands selling the same products as yours. When all your competitors enjoy the benefits of social media, such as increased conversion rates and web traffic, why should you stay idle?

Sooner you start, larger will be the audience

Social media is all about earning new acquaintances and getting social. In a similar way, you can earn as many potential customers once you enter the world of social media

Nothing to lose

You don’t endure any significant loses if your social media marketing isn’t successful.  Also, the money and time you spend on social media is nothing much compared to what you spend for other marketing techniques.

The earlier you go for it, the better your benefits will be.