Six Reasons to Include Social Media in Your Online Marketing Strategy
1. Improve Brand Awareness
Nothing makes a business owner happier than when people know their company! Leveraged properly, social media can be a powerful vehicle for getting the message out about who you are and what you do. Take a look at the Cream of Wheat Facebook fan page and how it is operated in order to promote brand awareness.
2. Increase Customer Loyalty & Trust
Brands that maintain an active presence on social media channels such as Pinterest, can remain in their customers’ thoughts through the use of periodic and thoroughly crafted messages. A good example is Mrs. Dash on Pinterest. Note the careful and effective organization of the pin boards as well as the use of key topics that resonate with their customers’ interests.
3. Social Media Signals Have an Effect on Website Rankings
It is no secret that social media interaction and perceived social popularity has been a ranking factor for the past few years. Although no one can say exactly how much, the fact remains that it does have an effect. Watch this video from all the way back in 2010, as Google Head of Webspam, Matt Cutts confirms that Google uses social media signals to help them score a website in organic search rankings.
4. Social Media Sites Include an Inbound Link
At the very least, setting up a social media profile for your online business can grant you an incoming link to you from a popular website. Additionally, most social sites provide you with a unique URL and often that will include your brand. From an SEO standpoint, it is beneficial to have another link to you, coming from an authoritative website (i.e.: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.).
5. Discover the Ways Your Customers Respond
In my opinion, social media has become the largest proving ground for brands to test out messages to their constituents and observe whether the results are positive, neutral or negative. We have all seen the funniest blunder tweets from one season, or another! There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of examples by this time of what not to do on social media channels. However, there are unique reactions each brand will have with its audience. Analyzing these customer reactions to specific messages could provide valuable insights for future marketing efforts.
6. Manage Reputation in Real Time
Social media has become the go-to outlet for online customer feedback and support. Often, the first place a customer will gripe is openly online! Maintaining social media channels like Facebook and Twitter allows you to create a forum for customer feedback which you ultimately control. Let it be the staging ground for any potential conflicts, so in the case of an unresolved negative issue, you can make the call as to how it is eventually left to be viewed by others. Worst case scenario, it could be deleted. 😀
People have more information than ever before, which is now a tremendous source of power. With the ability to leisurely consume brands online, social media provides users with an outlet to interact in more ways and at the pace of the consumer. If you have any questions about how social media can be improved on your website, feel free to reach out to the Philly Marketing Labs team for some quick insights at no cost or obligation.
