Why you can’t ignore Social Media

Over 2 billion people are online everyday. There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook, 50 million tweets sent per day, and over 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every second.

In this day and age, you can’t ignore the fact that social media has had an enormous impact on ours lives and the way we do business. Whether you are a fan of the social media revolution or not, ignoring it could potentially sabotage the future of your business.

So, why should your business incorporate a Social Media Strategy?

Exposure– If you’re looking to grow your business, you can use Social Media to enhance your traditional marketing efforts. Social Media networks allow your company to reach the highest number of potential customers possible. Social Media also has huge potential for reaching out to influential journalists in the industry, who could give you valuable coverage that, in turn, will increase sales.

Increase search engine rankings: Having Social Media pages for your company, will improve your search engine rankings. Using brand names and keywords in your business profiles can help generate traffic for your social media sites and company homepage.

Target market research – A good Social Media presence will allow you to better understand what your customers like and dislike.

Reputation management– Along with learning how your target market thinks, it’s important to learn what current and potential customers are saying about your product or services. 1,000,000 people view customer service related tweets every week. Therefore, with an active web presence you can handle any possible damaging situations in a timely matter.

Increase authenticity – Social Media can also drive the authenticity of your business by building personal relationships and giving your company a personality. The more people feel they know and like you, the more your business will succeed.

Get the message out faster and to more people– Social Media enables more rapid sharing of information then you can achieve through traditional media channels.

Build customer loyalty: Online tools such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can help provide businesses with opportunities to enhance customer relationships and encourage purchases.

Lower costs– Use of Social Media may provide an alternative to traditional advertising and marketing at a fraction of the costs.

The power of recommendation– Engage customers by encouraging them to share feedback directly via comments on blogs or on Facebook and Twitter. When potential customers read positive experiences from already satisfied customers they will be more likely to purchase.

Your competition is using it! – Whether you like social media or not, more and more companies are using social media to grow their brands, so it must be working. If you ignore it, be sure you will lose any competitive advantage in your industry.