In 2017 social media has become a crucial part of digital communications strategies. When done right it delivers measurable results in sales, leads, and branding. It also enables brands to reach a large number of people at a low cost.

The increasing importance of social media in business is evident: as 72 percent of opinion-seekers ages 25 to 34 look to social media for recommendations when purchasing goods and services. Retailers can't ignore how social media can impact the buying experience and increase sales.

And the best thing about the social marketing revolution? Brands really don’t need a huge budget to tap into social. It’s all about being smart and creative with the resources you do have, to show your brand in the best possible light.

Here are five good reasons why brands should get on-board with social media.

1. To open up a new and expanding audience

Facebook has over 2 billion active monthly users, with the Like and Share buttons hit 10 million times a day. Twitter has over 328 million monthly active users and tweet 55 million tweets a day. Instagram has over 700 million users

The potential to reach new customers through social media has never been greater and is constantly growing. With £5.67 billion attributed to online purchases annually and website visitors being ten times more likely to make a purchase if they are directed from social media, you could be missing out on valuable promotion and sales.

2. Increase knowledge of your customers

Social media platforms generate a huge amount of instantaneous information about your customers. It is a simple way of discovering who they are, where they’re based, how they feel about your brand, they’re interested and much more.

If used properly, this information could be used to alter your social media approach when it comes to communicating with customers.

3. Foster strong relationships

Build and maintain strong relationships with your customers and influencers in your field. Social media encourages real-time interactions, allowing brands to demonstrate exemplary customer service. Attentive customer service is the key to securing more customers, and social media is the perfect way to communicate with micro influencers who you may go on to work with in promoting your brand.

4. Invest in a targeted and measurable ad campaign

Social media now offers brands plenty of opportunity for invest in small-scale advertising campaigns, targeting the market you’d like to reach. Brands can easily filter audiences by age, location or interests, and work to a budget that they can comfortably afford.

5. Create content that people will want to share, therefore increasing brand reach several times over

Social media has evolved in the past few years. Whereas it used to be mainly used for keeping in touch with friends and family and personal updates, now content really is king. If a brand can design shareable content, their reach will suddenly increase from current fans and customers, to followers of their customers and so on. Creating viral content is a free and effective way for brands to hit the big time.

Before you start off on your exciting social media journey, it’s important to define what success looks like.

Come up with your goals in advance. Are they:

More sales?

More traffic to your website?

More people knowing about your brand?

More people mentioning you?

Bear in mind that none of the above approaches are wrong. The only wrong approach is not having targets in mind: if you don’t know what you’re looking to achieve, then you won’t be able to measure the success of your social campaigns.

If you would like to find out more information regarding social media marketing, please get in touch with zero2one today!

Why Your Business Needs Social Media