Does your business have a way to communicate what you do, what you think about certain issues, express ways that your business is different from others and communicate directly with your consumer? If not, then your business’ marketing strategy needs social media. The overarching reason for this is building trust between you and the client and/or potential client. With up to 75% of US Households using various social media platforms, there is a definite need and place for businesses to establish trust. Here are 5 of the ways to accomplish this:
1. Customer Engagement
There are more than a couple of social media platforms. Some are more popular than others depending certain demographics like: age, income level, ethnicity, and gender. This gives businesses a great resource to communicate and engage with their specific target market.
- Not all social media platforms are attractive to all ages and thus all target audiences. Pew Research shows Snapchat and IG are popular among 18-24-year-olds. Facebook and YouTube demographic ranges are far wider than with Snapchat and Instagram.
- 73% of U.S Adults users report using YouTube daily, with Facebook following closely at 69%.
- 78% of US men and 68% of US women use YouTube. At least 70% of U.S. adults use Youtube (this includes ages 18-64).
- Linkedin is generally used by higher-income households, as well as over half of college graduates.
With the ability to find your key audience on a specific social media platform, it’s key to engage with them there.
2. Brand Awareness
There is so much opportunity online for your content to be shared. This creates a ripple effect for friends of those who already follow.like your company (who likely are the same demographic, and share similar interests) to see your content and be exposed to your brand. Additionally, when you share posts on a social network, they are searchable via Google, as well as your website. Using social platforms will increase your chances about being found.
3. Convey Authority
This is your chance to show that you know your business well. There is a good chance that your potential client will be asking questions already. This is a prime opportunity to swoop in with the answers.
Telling stories or giving examples of how you provided solutions at a different time will help your target audience understand the situation better and apply it to their own.
This is also a chance for you to divulge in a more comprehensive display of your perspective regarding certain topics relating to your field of business-When you express your viewpoint on an issue, it helps your audience resonate a deeper level with you and builds trust in your abilities.
4. Express Authenticity
Developing authenticity goes hand in hand with thought leadership. Thought leadership builds trust, especially when marketing B2B (business to business).
The question to be answered here is “why”. People are simply not interested in “the product itself and therefore do buy the product because of what it is. They buy “why”. This is your chance to express authenticity through what motivates you. Your “why” will reverberate with your audience and they will become more loyal followers and thus- trust is built.
5. Complements SEO Rankings
While social media doesn’t improve ranking factors directly, links from social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are used in the algorithm. Here are 2 ways this can happen:
- Link sharing – When you produce quality content that interests people and engages them, the link is more likely to be shared repeatedly.
- Social media helps build an audience. Through that audience, there will be link sharing. When links are shared to your site, that builds that pages’ rankings. Higher click-through rates can impact search engine rankings.
Matt Cutts, Google’s former head of webspam team, said the following in his 2014 YouTube video “Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index, and so if something occurs on Twitter or occurs on Facebook and we’re able to crawl it then we can return that in our search results.”
In essence, socail media is VERY important for your business. These platforms have changed the landscape for how consumers relate to businesses. Consumers now have access to easily review a business, build a relationship with the brand and follow the day to day updates. With web index’s like Google treating social platforms like any other web page, it’s essential to get your business on a social platform or two that resonates with your audience. Need help? Contact Loud Canvas. Social Media Management is one of our specialties.
