5 Reasons Your Brand Needs An Unmissable Social Media Presence
Kylie Jenner founded Kylie Cosmetics in 2014 with nothing more than a Shopify store, a lean team consisting of seven members, and a superstar content marketing team.
With this small but solid structure, she grew her business into a $900 Million worth brand (As estimated by Forbes).
Guess what marketing channel she used to do this?
Social media.
Of course, there are those who say that it is her family name (The Kardashians) that helped her amass this fortune. But, if you take a closer look, you will realize that a family name is not sufficient to enter and dominate the cut-throat competitive cosmetic market with a $900 Million valuation. So needless to say, Kylie is doing something right with social media. Her social media follower count proves it.
It proves the fact that any business can use social media to turn around their fortunes. And that it is not to be treated as the last priority but with complete focus if you want to build a brand.
The bottom line: Your business needs a strong social media presence.
5 reasons why businesses need a strong social media presence
The benefits of a strong social media presence are countless. Here is a handful that really makes the case for social media.
It wins fans, not just transactional customers
Social media is a place where you can build relationships. If done right, these relationships can go beyond the usual type of customer-business engagement to that of brand-fan relationships.
By now you must be aware that fans are tough to be snatched by your competitors. They remain loyal, they bring recurring revenue, and they also refer new customers to your business. In other words, they help your new Customer Acquisition Costs while maximizing your RoI.
How does social media enable this? At the onset, it facilitates easy and quick conversations. You can prop into any brand’s social media handle to begin a conversation with them. Comments, DMs, reviews — there are countless options for conversion starters. From the customer’s perspective, this makes it easy to solve problems, find support, or even shower praise when needed.
You can serve multiple user personas
Your social media handle can take on multiple rules. You read that right. It can appeal to prospects who are considering buying your product or service, it can act as information supplying portal for job applicants, and even act as the official source of the latest updates for existing customers.
In other words, social media can be your:
- Marketer
- Recruiter
- Support executive
Social media offers the facility to don multiple hats with a single identity. You can play with multiple content formats like text statuses, images, sliders, explainer videos, GIFs, etc. to convey your message to the intended audience.
You can keep a tab on the competition
The easiest way to know what your competitors are up to is to follow their social media activities. Also, their social media behavior can also give a sense of how they treat customers, employees, and other stakeholders. In other words, it can give ideas or direction as to how you can do things better to win over them.
As a matter of fact, there were several moments when brands stole the thunder from their competitors by cashing in on unhappy customer posts.
Like this one between Pepsi and Coke who have been at war with each other even before social media was born:
Use it as your broadcast tool
One of the most powerful benefits of social media is that it lets you spread a message, at scale, instantly. No business misses making a social media splash revolving around a major update or release. You can announce a new change in management, a new product release, especially about funding, acquisitions, new feature releases, change in pricing, etc.
The team at Spider Solitaire Challenge, for example, introduced their game of the day concept to their social media following and instantly had hundreds of users playing and providing feedback.
For small businesses, this is like self-controlled PR. it saves time, effort, money, and also achieves the same if not, better results. In fact, you can also throw in some paid advertising into the mix to maximize your results.
Gadget companies have always used their social media handles as a channel to let their followers know about upcoming product launches. The right use of creatives, messaging, and timing can turn the post into a viral communique.
Check out how Samsung made the Galaxy S21 release grab attention with their Facebook post.
Give your brand an identity
The simple meaning of the term “brand” is this: a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name. In other words, an identity. Something that your customers will use to identify your product or service with. The identity ensures that your business enjoys special attention amidst a sea of competitors.
Take a look at Moz - the SEO software. Moz stands apart from other tools in the domain with its own branding efforts. It uses a mascot named Roger that gives the brand a unique character and identity.
Moz’s Twitter handle is pretty vibrant with posts of diverse nature, including conference dates, statistics on digital marketing, upcoming events, and much more. Additionally, Moz also uses out-of-the-box posts that are interactive and highly engaging. This heightens engagement as well. Take a look at this Tweet where they use toys to explain a complex topic like technical SEO.
It’s not always easy for one-person companies to fully build out a branded identity, but a presence on YouTube or other high-touch social media platforms can help with this. Plus, if done right, YouTube can be quite lucrative. This guide explains how to take YouTube from a simple channel to a revenue-generating asset.
Making the case on Social Media Presence
In 2021, if you are a business that wants to reach a huge mass of audience in the shortest time possible, you need to be on social media. It should be a critical piece of your overall digital marketing plan. Also, users spend an average of 3 hours per day on social networks and messaging. More than 71% of customers use social media to find reviews about products before making a buying decision (Search Engine Watch).
Having a strong social media presence will ensure that you win fans and not just customers. Your fans are less likely to leave compared to transactional customers, Also, you can serve multiple user personas like prospects, job seekers, and customers looking for support. Social media also lets you observe your competition from close quarters. As additional brownie points, it also acts as your official mouthpiece and contributes to building a strong brand presence.
Photo by Carol Magalhães on Unsplash