Did you know that 90% of all marketers say social media marketing has increased their business exposure?

Or that 66% of marketers that spend at least 6 hours on social per week have seen more leads? No matter what you sell and who you sell it to, using social media as a marketing tool can help you grow your brand and pad your wallet.

At this point, not having an active #socialmedia presence is like pulling out a flip phone at a business meeting and not understanding why Brad keeps getting all the new accounts. #SMM Click To Tweet

But some people still own flip phones, and some people dig in their heels and say, what is social media marketing going to do for me? Do I really need it?

Yes. Yes you do — and here are some of the most compelling reasons why:

The Importance of Social Media Marketing and Advertising for Web Traffic

1. Social media posts drive targeted traffic.

Whatever your industry, segment and audience, a substantial portion of your customers and leads are on social. A recent Pew Research Center study found that 68% of American adults are Facebook users. Among 18 to 24-year-olds, 78% use Instagram and 45% are on Twitter. Even among Americans 65 and older, 37% are social media users.

Having access to all those customers helps you boost traffic, particularly for new site content. When you post a new blog or update your homepage, it can take a while to get traction with Google. That means very few customers will know the new content is there until the next time they’re searching for your product or service.

Social media posts provide an opportunity for the public to find your new web content and click through to your site.

And because those posts will primarily show up in the feeds of followers and people interested in your product, that traffic is typically very targeted. It won’t just boost your traffic numbers — it will bring in the type of visitors you want to attract.

The traffic benefits of social media marketing can be dramatic.

We’ve seen a single link on Reddit drive over 20,000 visitors in one weekend, and StumbleUpon links (R.I.P.) increase daily page views from single digits to hundreds. Who wouldn’t want to capitalize on that?

2. Using social media for business boosts your site’s SEO.

Search engine crawlers know which pages are consistently earning traffic and which are just floating out there, forgotten and ignored. Although your killer content strategy is the most important factor in your search rankings, driving traffic to your optimized pages will cause them to climb much faster.

A lot of times, this can be as simple as re-sharing evergreen content (of course, in addition to sharing your new content when it goes live). We recommend each post be re-shared once a month — a task that doesn’t have to be as time-intensive as you might think. With Facebook’s scheduling tool or Hootsuite (for Twitter), you can set the entire month all at once and you’re done.

3. Social media can increase your reach via quoted experts.

This is one of our very favorite benefits of social media marketing. Let’s say you used HARO to find relevant experts for your latest blog post. Perhaps you quoted someone with a killer social media presence. Of course, you’re going to email them a link to the post when it goes live and encourage them to share it, but leveraging your own social media channels will help you go the extra mile here.

In your tweet and Facebook post sharing your new content, be sure to tag the experts you quoted so they see it pop up in their notifications.

Doing so makes it far more likely your source will share or retweet the link to their thousands (or tens of thousands) of followers, which drives traffic back to your website. It’s a win-win all around.

Social Media Is THE BEST Tool to Connect with (& Learn From!) Consumers & Industry Leaders


4. Social media marketing helps you understand your audience.

Part of what makes social channels like Twitter and Instagram effective marketing tools is the interaction you have with your customer base. By reading their tweets and status updates, you’ll gain insights into their daily lives and consumer behaviors, and answer questions such as:

  • What products are they buying and why?
  • What hobbies do they have?
  • What kinds of posts do they love to share?
  • What websites do they visit?

These insights have obvious marketing benefits. When you understand your customers, you can write better content and more compelling posts, which leads to more traffic. But the benefits can sometimes go far beyond marketing, helping you identify customer pain points, improve sales conversions and even refine your product strategy.

5. An active social media presence builds relationships with your audience.

Consumers see Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as social networks, not marketing machines.

That can be a challenge when you’re first developing your social media marketing strategy. A lot of companies instinctively take a hard sell approach, inundating their followers with discount offer codes, new product announcements and customer reviews. Then, when the account only brings in modest traffic gains, they assume social just isn’t a good fit for their brand.

But customers don’t want to be pitched to — they want authentic engagement.

When you stop seeing social as a way to pitch your customers and start seeing it as a way to connect with them, it can transform your brand. You help customers by answering their questions, entertaining and informing them with relevant content and even forming bonds over shared interests.

"In #SMM, remember that customers don’t want to be pitched to — they want authentic engagement." - The Content Factory

You’ll build connections with industry leaders and influencers, providing great stories for reporters, top notch products for promoters and interesting topics for experts to share with their followers. Over time, you’ll become more than a brand — you’ll become a part of a community.

And that comes with serious ROI. If you're following social media marketing best practices, you'll get a ton of exposure. That exposure brings in new leads. Over time, those leads become followers, followers become customers and customers become dedicated brand promoters, continuing the cycle.

6. Social media ads allow targeting and retargeting.

Why advertise on social media?

Because social media platforms offer highly targeted ads, which can be customized around your customers’ needs. Facebook ads, for example, can target customers by factors like age, location, education level, industry and even user behavior — e.g. the pages a user has liked. Using an ads management tool like HubSpot will give you even more insights into your ad campaigns. Connecting your ads to a CRM will allow you to see exactly which ads are turning prospects into customers.

Pro Tip: Install a Facebook pixel on your website to track how your ads affect customer behavior, and retarget your ads accordingly. Over time, Facebook will learn which users are more likely to click your link or buy a product, delivering your ads to the people most likely to convert into solid leads and sales.

7. Social media can help you get noticed at events and earn media coverage.

Whatever metric you use to measure the success of an event, it will always demand effective promotion. And that promotion always benefits from an active social media presence.

  • Measuring signups for a new expert webinar series? Facebook and LinkedIn will help spread the word.
  • Working to maximize donations at a charity fundraiser? Good social targeting will help you reach the big donors.
  • Attending a trade show to collect high-quality leads? A mature social media strategy will enable you to leverage influencers to amplify your message and bring attendees to your booth.

Brand Image Thrives on Social Media Marketing

8. Social media is key to customer service

Quick customer response time isn’t optional anymore. If there’s a problem with your product or service, your customers expect you to solve it right away.

Few companies are meeting those expectations.

A Sprout Social study found that customers want responses to social media companies within four hours, yet the average response time is 10 hours.

"A @SproutSocial study found that customers want #socialmedia responses within 4 hours, but average response time is 10 hours. #SMM" - The Content Factory

This isn’t just a minor irritation for your customers — it directly affects your profits. A Twitter study showed that customers are willing to pay almost $20 more for future tickets when airlines respond to their tweets within 6 minutes.

And that isn’t just an isolated data point, either. Study after study has shown that consumers reward companies that respond to customer requests and complaints. A strong and engaged social media marketing presence will help you keep customers happy, and keep your public image positive.

9. A strong social media presence builds brand loyalty.

A report published by Texas Tech University found that brands with active social media profiles have more loyal customers.

It’s easy to understand why: when you’re engaging the public on social media, you’re building connection and rapport. You’re taking the time to provide your followers with useful information, help and entertainment, without asking for anything in return.

That shows customers you value them, not just as a source of revenue, but as people. Customers will begin to see you as an entity that cares about them, and has values, personality and vision. And in a competitive market, that can make a huge difference.

10. Social media is the perfect addition to your PR strategy.

Press releases are an important part of any marketing strategy, especially when you’re launching a new product or making a huge change in your company, but most people get the distribution part terribly wrong. If what you’re accustomed to is writing a press release and sending it out on PRWeb, you’re wasting your money.

Traditional press release distribution services are incredibly overrated.

Social media, on the other hand, provides you with a space where you can reach your target audience in a more personal, conversational way. And if your customers have questions, they can ask you right then and there.

Hand adjust a clock with the word priority above it.

Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik


The Right Social Media Marketing Strategy Can Help You Slay the Competition

11. Your competition is already social.

The crowded world of social media branding can feel very intimidating. Most brands have at least a token social media presence, and in some industries, multiple channels is the norm. For example, 91% of retail brands are using at least two social media platforms. So, what hope do you have of getting your brand noticed on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram?

It’s a lot easier than you think, because most brands aren’t doing it right.

Bigger brands may have sophisticated social media presences, but SMEs rarely do.

They start a few social media channels because it’s cheap, and it’s what everyone else does. Without investing in social media strategy, however, they rarely make a big impact. They post irregularly, rarely engage with followers and don’t develop a sophisticated voice. Social media remains essentially just a way for them to throw ads at customers now and then. And when that strategy doesn’t yield results, they put even less effort into it.

The truth is, posting to social media because you think you’re supposed to post will get you nowhere.

You’re better off with one really good social media channel than your competitor is with four semi-abandoned ones. If you take the time to develop your voice and strategy, post regularly and respond to messages and comments promptly, you can build a following your lazy competitors can’t possibly match — even if they’ve been on social for years longer than you have.

12. The social media marketing arena is a (fairly) level playing field.

Everyone can start a social media account for free, and most SMEs can dedicate either the time to maintain a social media channel, or the budget to outsource social media marketing.

Big brands do have some obvious advantages: better name recognition, bigger budgets that let them put together slick posts across multiple channels, and (in general) more influencers who already want to engage with their brand.

But SMEs have one big built-in social media advantage most big brands don’t: authenticity.

If you’re an entrepreneur with an inspiring story, a local company with ties to your community or an underground brand offering something new and exciting to early adopters, that can resonate with consumers — even if you don’t have a massive ad budget.

Ultimately, you don’t have to beat all your competitors at their own game to win on social media. You just need to find a way to connect with your own market in a way that builds your own brand. If you’ve got a good team and a strong brand voice, backed up by a solid product, that’s something you can do.

13. When it comes to newsjacking, social media is king.

In our media-saturated culture, it’s hard to tell when fate will throw a great opportunity at your brand. Sometimes your brand gets mentioned on a cable TV show, or tweeted about by an influencer. Other times, there’s a news story, meme, or pop-culture phenomenon that fits perfectly with your branding.

If you can jump in and engage with the story while everyone is paying attention, it can lead to viral posts, traffic boosts, press coverage and greater visibility for your brand. This strategy, known as newsjacking, works best if you get your voice out there while it’s still breaking news. If you join in too late, you’ll just look like another company trying to ride the trend.

To be one of the first voices out there, you need an active social media team.

Not only will that enable you to track and react quickly to current events, it will also ensure your message gets out, so that reporters, influencers and followers see your take while the story is still hot.

Download Our FREE Social Media Posting Schedule

The Importance of Social Media Marketing for Sales and ROI

14. Social media marketing will get you more sales.

So, why is social media marketing important for your business?

Because it will get you more sales. Period.

Did you know that 70% of business-to-consumer marketers have acquired customers through Facebook? Or that 84% of CEOs and VPs say they use social media to help make purchasing decisions?

Not surprisingly, when you stay in front of your customer base, they’re more likely to buy from you when they need the products you sell, but social media marketing does far more than increase brand presence. You can influence customer buying decisions at multiple points along the sales funnel, from amplifying the reach of white papers and blogs targeting top of funnel, to answering customer questions and addressing pain points, to incentivizing buyers with coupon codes. We even think it's crucial for real estate agents to get on social media — and stay active!

"#SMM tip: Try sharing coupon codes, with a unique code for each social channel – you may be surprised at which social network drives the most sales." - The Content Factory

15. You can find potential customers who don’t already know your brand.

Social media marketing enables you to search out customers looking for information related to your product — even if they aren’t familiar with your company.

For example, on Twitter, you can use Hootsuite to set up streams, following specific keywords related to your industry or products. When you spot people tweeting about those products, you can direct them to your site, or explain how your product can address their needs.

This strategy can also be valuable for customers who tweet about your brand, but may not be familiar with a new product or use case. By reaching out to them with new information, you can not only influence a sales decision, but also show customers how your brand is growing to better meet their needs.

16. Social media marketing establishes you as an authority in your industry.

From joining Facebook groups to answering Quora questions, social media provides ample opportunities to demonstrate your expertise.

By answering questions, giving advice and sharing relevant information, you can show your leadership.

If you use this strategy regularly, it can greatly increase your brand’s reach. Your answers to common questions will come up in Google search, as well as in particular social channels. Other users will start to retweet or share to your posts or refer friends and colleagues to your social media team when they have questions. And new leads, impressed with your helpful information, will be more likely to visit your site and purchase your products.

All without ever asking anyone to buy!

You Can't Beat the Price (or ROI) of Social Media

17. The ROI on social media ads is unbeatable.

A pink social media comment box 3D rendering

Image by mamewmy on Freepik 

By boosting the right social media posts, you can bring in a lot of traffic at a fraction of the cost of targeted Google ads.

As of 2018, the average Google AdWords cost per click varied from $1.20 for travel and tourism, to $5.27 for education and employment. Depending on the keyword targeted, you can end up paying $50 or more for a single click. Cost per acquisition — the amount of money businesses spend on ads to acquire a single customer — varies even more, from less than $20, to over $200 for the legal industry.

Just take a look at some of the most expensive AdWords keywords:
  • “Divorce attorney” costs $31 per click
  • “Cloud computing” costs $72 per click
  • “Solar installation” costs $11 per click
  • “Car insurance brokers” costs $21 per click
  • “Press release distribution” costs $29 per click

With boosted posts, you have a lot more control over when your message gets amplified, which means you can spend your advertising budget more strategically by focusing on the posts that matter most to your audience.

Through targeted boosted posts, we’ve been able to send traffic via Facebook and Pinterest for as little as $0.12 per click. At the low end, that’s ten times more traffic per dollar than you get from AdWords

18. Social media marketing is fun!

Hosting a Twitter chat to celebrate a new product launch, getting your geek on while you A/B test Facebook ads, or sharing pop-culture polls for your followers to weigh in on doesn't just build your audience — it also gives you a chance to interact with your audience, express yourself and show what your brand is about.

With all the work that goes into marketing and growing your business, getting a chance to build real connections with customers is incredibly rewarding. And when that one perfect tweet goes viral, or that Q&A session brings in a big traffic boost, you’ll feel like a rockstar!

Drive Revenue With Social Media

No marketing tool or technique plays a bigger role in influencing your brand perception than social media. Regularly interacting with followers, journalists, thought leaders and taste-makers can increase your profile, improve your public image and give your brand the sales it deserves.

Are you ready to rocket ahead of your competitors and take the social media world by storm?

Want to see your search engine rankings climb and your traffic soar? Pull out that flip phone and give us call. We’ll get you on the path to success.

Header Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

By Kari DePhillips

marketing with facebook, Online PR agency, social media marketing, Using Twitter for marketing, web PR

  1. The biggest benefit of social media is that you can reach to your targeted audience and you can be engaged with them and can respond them quickly.

    1. That’s definitely one of the bigger benefits, but we’ve also had quite a bit of success with using social media (Twitter, in particular) as a PR tool. We’ve had tweets turn into major media coverage before, ranging from Wired magazine to Business News Daily. 

  2. Brilliant post. 

    Social media can also be a great way to easily evaluate competitors as well, by being able to monitor their pages within the insights page. We can easily see what our competitors' strategy by the types of content they post and also see the effectiveness of it though viewing their engagements and page likes. Not only great for the own business benefits but social media is also a valuable tool to assess and beat the competition.

  3. Business take advantage of social media to communicate with customers .Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive conversation. Social media is easily accessible and it’s also the meeting point of today’s internet audience. Social media opens possibilities of direct access to clientswithout any third party interference

  4. I am a SEO executive, in my work i mostly used social media fro marketing…

    now adays social media is one of the most important part of business… 

  5. Having compelling visuals is definitely key to gaining traction within the social sphere, though I would say that such a strategy would probably go a lot farther using image-centric social media platforms like Pinterest or Instagram. Anyhow, nice article! =)

  6. Well, it's hard to disagree  – whoever underestimate the power of the Social Media these days must be blind. From my experience i can tell, that Social media campaigns are getting even more conversions that PPC campaigns such an Adwords.

  7. Hey Kari! I loved your article and how it talked about social media and its huge importance for brands. I thought it was really helpful and interesting to see that by having the right social media marketing strategy, your brand can really succeed. Similar to a lot of what you discussed, there's a new app called FAPL that brings brands and consumers together through social media.  For the first time, people can shop directly from user uploaded or brand uploaded photos straight from within the app. A search function allows for the use of technology for organic collaborations, and it offers a much more highly personalized experience compared to any other photo sharing app.

  8. Nice article. I use Capzool to find and publish content social media. It’s a real time saver.

  9. Hello,

    A very informative article. Social media marketing is popular. Social media marketing provides business opportunities to grow their audiences. Social media marketing is cost-effective as compared with traditional forms of marketing. I agree with you that 90 percent of businesses are using more than one social media platform.

    You need to choose the social media site that best suits your brand. Businesses can target all age demographics with social media marketing. Social media marketing allows businesses to share a story about their brand and encourages customer engagement.

    Businesses are taking the advantage of email marketing as email marketing is cost effective and easy to access. Businesses can target a list of customers through email marketing.

  10. This is a very good article. Extremely informative as well. Businesses wanting to gain exposure should absolutely take advantage of the free social media platforms.

    Each platform can benefit you in multiple ways.

    Brad

  11. Yes it is, It’s my personal experience. Till 2013 my business was only in local market, just offline.
    I made a website just for showing designs and dress models to my customers.
    Then an agency approaches me for SEO and social media of my websites. First I was not interested because it was going great but only because of my friend I agreed.
    Can you believe what I got?
    SEO and social media increased my sells almost 200% and I was like WOW…. So from my side. Always go for SEO.
    Thank you for this post. It’s really helpful for all those small biz owners who are still missing SEO of their website.

  12. Strongly agree with the points number 12 and 7 of social media helping in sales and in helping in addressing problems quickly.

  13. I am totally agree with you. Social media is one of the most important things in the present world. At present, you must be careful about social media marketing if you are a online marketer. I use social media to promote my blog site. Social media is a great source of traffic. Thanks for sharing.

  14. If you are planning to explore your online business then social media marketing is must because now-a-days people are more active on social media and its the best way to attract your potential customers !

  15. After reading your blog, I decided to go for Social Media Marketing, and guess what? It helped in increasing my sales and promote my brand online to a wider audience. Thanks a lot!

  16. Social Media is definitely ruling the marketing world today. And with its increased use that has grown to endless boundaries it has become an even more effective platform for marketing your business with the additional advantage of extremely low costs and promising a high visibility. Thank you for sharing this informative article. I especially liked the way you have categorized the importance of social media and mentioned different reasons under those categories.

  17. Proper Engagement is important in Social Media to be successful in connecting to your target audience. Doing this helps build trust!

    1. Depends on if you have an ad budget or not. If you’ve got some money to throw behind social ads, Facebook is great. For connecting with influencers and reporters who cover your industry, though, Twitter is probably the best.

  18. Thanks for sharing this informative article. Social media being very popular & the biggest platform to promote your business in a multiple way. It provides you the opportunities to grow your business & reach your audience. You need to choose the best social media site that best suits your business & brand.

  19. If you also include the social media management tools in the add-to-list, you’ll receive a huge boost in your brand marketing. It’ll do all your weekly/monthly/yearly tasks that have been planned by you or your co-workers/team members. The management can be done by anyone who is permitted to work on the project.

  20. Now social media is very important for a company or marketing. It makes a huge difference. That’s why a company has to follow some basic for making the positive review from the audience. From social media, we can easily track our targeted audience for business. So Every company or a person has to use social media very carefully. Thanks for your valuable post. Keep it up.

  21. Social media provides an opportunity to quickly react to the feedback. Either the outcome is positive or negative, you have got the way to respond within seconds. A research has found that customers are more likely to remain consistent to those firms who respond to their queries and feedback. Tweets and statuses depict if any issue has been arrived from the side of customer and you can take the appropriate steps to resolve it, this will help in customer retention.

  22. I like what you said about people being less likely to see what you post on social media as an ad and more likely to hear what you have to say. Getting a business on social media I think can really get a business off the ground easier than other older advertisement methods. Especially with a universal business that isn’t only local and wants to be nationwide.

  23. Nicely describe the importance of Social Media for web traffic…..Thanks for sharing this info and keep using new social networking platform for uniqueness.

  24. Precisely! Whether you have a big or small business, it’s one of the best options to indulge it with Social Media Marketing in order to make it more familiar to a wide range of audience and positively increase your sales even more! Great information, thanks for sharing!

  25. Good post. I learn something new and challenging on sites I stumbleupon everyday.
    It’s always interesting to read articles from other writers and use
    something from other sites.

  26. >A report published by Texas Tech University found that brands with active social media profiles have more loyal customers.

    Did they actually prove that the increased loyalty was actually caused by the increased social media presence?

    Personally I can’t think of a single thing that I buy because I like the stuff they post on Facebook.

  27. Social media sucks and is worthless to business. Those people are looking for friends not business websites.

    A worthless hype for business and a marketing ploy for social media.

  28. Social media marketing is the most important element for the success in marketing. Social is the most powerful tool to promote your product among customers. Through social media marketing, you don’t need to spend a single penny for advertising. Thank you for sharing the very informative article.

  29. Actually social media is best resource for grow the business. Very helping for grow business. I am reading your blog and valuable info about social media marketing. Thank you so much.

  30. Wow fantastic post! Nowadays social media marketing is becoming more popular, everyone uses social media for marketing as well as personal use. It is very beneficial to use social media for business marketing. Thank you for sharing information like this.

  31. So true, You gave us some good reasons to go social. Many small businesses struggle when they first get started, competition is very tough now, but you don’t have the right social media strategy you won’t do well. In order to increase sales you need traffic which you can get through social media channels you just need to pick a few and work on them. With social media is easy to become an authority in your industry I strongly agree, people always value quality content like what you share in this post.

  32. Interesting blog, good information is provided regarding Role Of Social Media In Business. Was very useful, thanks for sharing the blog.

  33. Social media has definitely become the norm for a lot of businesses. However I should add that many are struggling to see viable results because they try to hard sell their audiences and provide no valuable content. What has worked for my agency is providing lots of valuable content up like videos, educational posts upfront and keeping promotional posts to a minimum. We saw that our audience became more drawn to our brand, created more trust and authority.

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