Do I need a social media presence for my business?

Let’s start with one undeniable fact: your business needs a social media presence. Perhaps that was not the introduction you were hoping for but it is the reality. Social media allows marketers to connect and engage potential customers where they are: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and even TikTok. The key though is to build a strong social media strategy and create engaging content that engages your audience.

Let’s say you are B2B and you only sell to other businesses, you may be thinking that social media is less important than one who sells directly to consumers. That kind of seems like a fair point, until you realise that B2B is ALSO built on the backs of human connection and interaction. Business leaders also use social media, not just consumers; so who’s to say that potential businesses aren’t seeing your content and following you already.

By using social media, businesses are able to build brand awareness and engage with audiences that would otherwise be unreachable. You can use social media to tell your brand story, repurpose your website content, highlight articles from your website that build authority, humanise your brand and stay in contact with potential and existing customers. By posting meaningful and engaging content, your business has the opportunity to also gain new leads and increase your rate of conversion because by the time a potential lead engages, they already have a better understanding of who you are as a business. 

Posting content that solves customers problems, you are also gaining credibility and creating authority and nurturing your potential leads. 

Social media can also provide a more informal platform for customers to provide feedback. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate how your business deals with customers and potentially negative feedback. By treating this as an opportunity, you allow your business to grow and adapt and make positive changes that you may not have been aware were needed.

In 2021, 4.48 billion people were actively using social media - giving your business a window into the largest addressable market online. By studying this market, and solving your customers' problems, you are able to build a community of people who are interested in what you are talking to them about and trust what you are saying.

The benefit of this is that your audience is voluntary and not captive. Paid advertising is unavoidable and society is wary of “being sold”, so the idea that you have access to a community that respects you and follows you is valuable.

Let’s look at some actual data:

1. Youtube accrues more than 1 billion hours of watch time each day.
2. 82% of B2B marketers report using LinkedIn as a means of networking and making professional connections. They also use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest.
3. 95% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic content marketing, making it the top-rated social media platform.
4. 91% of B2B buyers actively use social media (IDC).
5. 90% of Instagram members follow a business or official brand account (Instagram).
6. Facebook reaches 59% of the global social media population and has the largest share of users of social media in the world.
7. 90 million LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers, and 63 million are in decision-making positions.
8. 93% of Twitter members say they’re open to letting brands join a conversation, especially when they provide help (Twitter).
9. TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users and many of them come to the platform to learn - a key step in the B2B buying cycle. 
10. The average conversion rate of Facebook Ads is between 9 and 10%; which is higher than most other paid platforms. 

Employee advocacy is another great aspect of social media. When an employee is proud to work for a business, they are more likely to share their content which exposes your business to more people and continues the cycle of creating brand awareness.

So while you may have thought that social media for your business was wasting your very valuable time and resources, you can see that the statistics and information doesn’t back that up. The most effective way to utilise the benefits of social media is to direct your efforts to the platforms that are most relevant to your business and keep your presence up.

If you’d like help activating your digital marketing strategy for your business, you can book a marketing review here.

During the review, we’ll consider your business growth goals and current challenges limiting that growth. We’ll then create a marketing strategy in response that considers which marketing activities to prioritise, and when. Finally, with a clear marketing plan, we partner with you as your marketing agency to execute the activities and provide monthly reports on progress.

Don’t leave your marketing up to chance - book a marketing review with The Brand Shop, and get clear about how you continue to grow your business.