Marketing is a fundamental component of every business as it helps to inform the public on what your product or service entails, strengthen your brand and boost your revenue. Many business owners struggle with marketing their products and services effectively to potential customers due to poor marketing strategies or not utilizing the right marketing tools.

Back in the days, before the arrival of social media, businesses relied upon word of mouth and mass media forms such as Radio, Television, Newspaper etc. to spread information about their product and service to the public. Although these forms of mass media helped reach a large portion of the public, businesses were not able to streamline their marketing efforts to target the right audience.

The presence of social media brought about a dramatic change as it revolutionized how businesses marketed their products and communicated with customers. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter etc. are powerful tools used by businesses all across the globe to market products, build brand trust and engage with customers effectively. Using social media platforms for your business has an array of advantages that support business growth.

WHY SHOULD I USE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR MY BUSINESS?

Social media platforms provide business owners with a plethora of benefits that support business growth and increase profit. Below are the benefits of integrating social media into the marketing operations of your business;

1). Create brand awareness — An important marketing goal for every business is to have brand recognition and spark the right conversations centered on their product in the public space. Social media platforms are a great way to build and grow awareness around your product and service. Using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc., businesses can create and share high quality contents (Videos, Pictures, Reels etc.) that produce results that are beneficial to business growth.

2). Build and Enhance customer relationships — In recent times, customers have utilized social media as the fastest means of getting across to their favorite brands. Gone are the days of having enquiries unanswered or not having an avenue to express your dissatisfaction about a product or service. Through social media platforms, customers can get quick responses to their queries or enquiries and even share reviews about your product and service. Also, social media platforms provide an avenue for business owners and customers to be in constant communication as this helps to build trust and loyalty for both the business and customer.

3). Increased Web Traffic: If your business has a website, social media is a great way to drive customers to your website. Whether your business has an online store or a brick-and-mortar location, social media is the quickest means to lead visitors to your brand website to learn more about your product and service. For instance, let’s say you have an exciting new product that you want to introduce to the public. Using social media, you can post a picture or explainer video centered on the product and then insert a link on the post that takes people to your business website to learn more about that particular product. See, it’s simple!

4). Provides a platform for brand storytelling: A great marketing strategy that customers do enjoy but many businesses do not implement is brand storytelling. The act of connecting your product and service to interesting stories is a great way to engage your audiences and increase awareness for your product and service. Social media provides your business with a platform to tell and share engaging stories of your products and services to your customers. Through storytelling on social media channels, you can humanize your brand, increase audience engagement and build an online community around your brand. Brand storytelling can happen in different forms that include incorporating videos, photos, fictional characters to tell a story centered around your product or a quick video highlighting why you started your business and what purposes your business aims to serve.

5). An avenue to source and share content: A plus to using social media for your business is that it helps you source for content ideas and share those exciting contents with your existing and potential customers. These content ideas can be sourced via feedbacks from your customers, Instagram polls, Exciting Q n A sessions etc. Social media also gives you an opportunity to see what your competitors are up to and what kind of contents they produce that might be working for them. Another plus to using social media for your business is that it makes promoting contents fun, easy and cheap. Using social media, you can promote your product-centric contents on various channels from the comfort of your mobile or desktop for free.

6). It’s cost-effective — Unlike mass media forms that involve paying for an ad slot or space on Tv and Newspaper, social media platforms do not necessarily require payment before you can advertise your business. All you need is a smartphone and Internet connection. Although social media platforms like Facebook have effective business tools that require you to subscribe for them monthly, you can still promote your business for free without using these online business tools and get your desired marketing result. Using social media for your business is a cost effective means of marketing your product and service to a wider audience online.

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