Is social media worth your time for customers?

42% of the World’s population has social media, and the numbers are likely to increase.

Executing social media marketing for new and existing businesses can be difficult since social newsfeed algorithms are tightening up, but is it still worth your time?

Social media is entwined into our daily life, both for business and pleasure. It’s no longer about whether you should be involved, it’s about how you’re getting involved, and whether this is a good way to reach your customers.

This requires you to really understand your customers and their needs. Do they want knowledge? Entertainment? Or are they looking for communication and engagement opportunities through your social media channels?

Deciding if social media is worth your time depends on how much content you’re planning on generating, how quickly and frequently you want to release it and how compelling it is to your audience.

Organic social media marketing strategies

Having an organic social presence can be essential for your business. The term “organic” refers to customers viewing your content naturally (within their social media feeds in this case), rather than “artificially” by PPC ads and boosted posts.

Buying likes and followers may give you a short-term boost, but it won’t increase revenue and engagement. To make social media worth your time, you need to increase your organic social media marketing.

There are several ways to develop organic social media marketing strategies for your business:

• Make sure your engagement is frequent. It’s essential that you engage in social media frequently, whether that be posting, commenting or sharing posts. This way, you’ll come across as an active business to your customers and more likely to be remembered.
• Consider the following of local businesses in your area. Share their posts and content, and initiate direct communication with them. If they do the same, this increases your organic presence and customers naturally gravitate to your business profile.
• Be aware of trends and hashtags that apply to your posts. For example, if you see a new trend that can apply to your company, try and get on board by using different social media platforms to promote this.
• Ensure all hyperlinks within your content are working. If parts of the website you’re linking to aren’t working and don’t take your customers across to the desired page, this can certainly frustrate them and lose their interest.
• Complete your social media profiles fully. Social media is a great platform to share company information — make full use of it and complete your profiles. For example, our client Connect Insolvency hired us to keyword target their social profiles to drive people to their social media better.

Goal setting

Anyone can create a Twitter account and tweet, but you need to create a strategy and strict deadlines for your approach to social media. You need to understand what you want to get out of your time spent on social media and begin by identifying the right social networks.

For example, a recruitment company might use LinkedIn to the best of their abilities by searching for potential candidates. Did you know that 46% of all social media traffic to company websites come from LinkedIn? It can be a really helpful tool.

Some common goals can include building a community around your business, creating an authentic voice for your company, and improving brand visibility online. All of these strategies should lead to an increase in sales!

Benefits social media can bring to your business

Improve business credibility

By having social media accounts for your business, you will improve your credibility.

Many customers use the internet to search for products and services they need. Prospective clients will want some social proof online. This can include customer reviews, social media engagement and customer support.

71% of users who’ve had a good social media experience with a company are likely to recommend it! Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great ways for your customers to ask quick questions and receive a reply in a timely manner.

The number of likes and comments also speaks of your services, as users may scan through these to find genuine customer feedback.

Communication & engagement

Social media allows you to have two-way conversations with your customers, on a more friendly level.  Your social media can now be used as a form of advertising for yourself. You can use your social presence to advertise sales, product releases, big news within your company and so on. Your customers can use the platforms to give you feedback to suggest improvements.

By creating good communication, between customers and your business, you are entering a long-term business relationship with your audience. These platforms also allow you to react with your audience creatively. If your business is of a subject that seems quite mundane, you can use your platforms for thinking outside-of-the-box.

Increased traffic

Every social media platform should link to your website — and vice versa. A key benefit of using these platforms is that it will increase traffic to your website, which in turn should increase sales and engagement with your services.

Furthermore, it’s important to also have your social media links easily accessible on your website. As customers who do find your website first can then be directed to your social media after, making it easier for them to find your company’s social proof.

Measure your social media’s ROI

After all that hard work on social media, you need to assess whether you are wasting time or if it’s paying off for your business. To know whether your efforts are successful, you need to measure your return on investment (ROI).

For social media platforms

Almost every major social media platform has an analytics dashboard built inside of it, allowing you to see clicks, likes, shares, comments and the overall engagement your posts have had individually. Therefore, be sure to utilise these in order to make an informed decision.

For websites

Many people use Google Analytics, which allows you to track which social media platform is bringing you in the most traffic. You can also track more complex data such as which posts lead to the most engagement on your website. However, this may require skills for implementing UTM parameters within your social media links, website and Google Analytics account.

Making social media worth your time for customers won’t be easy. It will take hard work, time and money to get your platforms off the ground, but if sustained long-term, it is definitely worth it!