Consumers are now exposed to many contents online and different marketing strategies are being used by companies to communicate their brands. This is a good time for businesses to establish their presence online in order to communicate with their consumers online.
Here are 5 reasons why it’s important for your business to use social media.
- Social media platforms have become a major part of our lives. The current trends show a significant amount of consumers use mobile phones and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest to communicate with friends and know what is happening around them. Businesses can participate in this social conversation by setting up accounts on social media platforms and interacting with their consumers. This increases your company’s presence online and creates awareness of your products and services.
- Social media allows businesses to reach their targeted audience and engaged with them one on one. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are used by companies to interact with their customer base. Using these platforms allows you to get an insight into your customer’s lives by reading their tweets, statuses and also replying to their queries. For example, if you are facing problems with your new product or service, you are most likely going to receive customer complaint on social media immediately. This is important for a business because you can rectify and respond to your customers immediately. This feedback will help you improve your products or services.
- Social media has improved interaction between businesses and consumers. This interaction (posting, sharing content) on social media platforms creates a relationship between the consumer and their brands. A business can read their consumers tweets and status updates to get insights into their daily lives. This can help a business adjust its marketing strategy to suit their targeted market.
- Online shoppers are influenced by product reviews/endorsements. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin, Youtube and blogs play a big part in influencing shoppers to buy your product. Consumers now rate the products they buy to their friends, fans and followers. This kind of review is more authentic to people and has a better chance of creating leads. Having good reviews on these platforms can create a good rapport to have your products or services bought.
- Social media provides businesses with greater access to their customers buying patterns. Social media has given companies statistical data which they can use to serve their customers better. For example, Facebook analytics can help a cosmetic company understand what their customers like most by seeing what they click and interact with the most on your page. It also provides information such as; what time your customers usually access your page, which time of the week is the busiest and the turnover you can get from each product a customer clicks to buy your product. This information is essential for you business because you are able to concentrate on the products that your consumers like, furthermore improve on the ones that are not performing well.
Richard Branson stated that “social media is such a terrific way to connect with our customers that I would never miss out”. Looking at the worldwide sales of ecommerce you can have a better understanding why social media is important for your business. In recent years there has been an increase in people shopping online. According to Statista.com, the B2C ecommerce sales worldwide stood at 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars in 2013. It is estimated that ecommerce sales worldwide will reach 2.35 trillion U.S. dollars by 2018. That’s an increase of over 1 trillion dollars in sales within 5 years. This is due to an increase in consumers being open minded to shop online and embracing the digital experience. Social media is important for your company because more people are using social media as a reference to buy products, furthermore consumers usually post and review products they have bought on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This can be a great driving force for your product sales.
Have a look at some interesting statistics courtesy of Digital Insight
