The escalation of technology has been evident for over a decade now. Businesses irrespective of their size and industry have been dependent on digital tools to connect with their target audience. And the only platform to effectively connect and engage with the customer digitally is social media. Let’s have a look at this informative piece discussing how to effectively using social media for business successfully.
The perks of using social media for business are undeniably fruitful and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. Especially if you’re planning to launch your business, there’s nothing better than social media to attract the hype you wish to have for your business.
Without further ado, let’s move ahead and get to know how Social Media can pave a way for your business goals to turn into reality.
Benefits of social media for business
1. Increased brand recognition
When it comes to Social Media, the statistics are overwhelming.
As per Forbes, the active social media usage in India stands at 33.4%.
In early 2023, the major social media platforms in India had a user base of 398.0 million individuals aged 18 and above, accounting for 40.2% of the country’s total population, as per statistics.
Now think, with such a huge number of people using social media, you have a greater potential audience to connect, engage and convert.
2. Significant increase in inbound traffic
Leveraging social media for business leads to brand presence, and presence leads to brand recognition. And brand recognition ultimately leads to increased traffic to your website.
Related read: 5 Ways to increase traffic to your online store: Free and paid methods
Every content piece that you syndicate on your social media will act as an opportunity to gain a new customer thus effectively opening your business to a wider variety of consumers all over the world.
Related read: How to build a brand for your small business: Tips and practical examples
3. Higher conversion rates
With quality content and a greater share of customer engagement, social media ultimately yields a higher rate of conversion.
People tend to engage with businesses they resonate with, and the only way businesses can potentially build a trail of engagement with a customer is by having well-strategised content syndicated on multiple platforms where the customers are the most active.
Related read: When To Post On Social Media To Improve Customer Engagement
4. Brand authority
Social media is a crowded place, and audiences are often overwhelmed by the brands trying to sell themselves.
And amongst all this content noise, when your potential customer notices your social media profile and the content that you post, there’s a business reputation of the brand that forms in a customer’s mind.
This image can either convert a customer or divert a customer from your brand or business.
Especially when potential prospects see your company posting original content like infographics, video stories, and customer testimonials on social media, they may find these useful or engage with, this will make your brand appear more credible and worthy to interact with.
5. Most quantifiable marketing strategy
One of the best benefits is that every content piece that you syndicate can be analysed. Now you might be thinking why is it important? Well, for a business it is extremely important to quantify every marketing effort that you put in for your brand.
Analysing strategies with advanced social media analytics tools can give you a clear picture of the difference between how you think your strategy would work, and how it actually works. This clear picture helps you plan and improvise.
Now that you have a fair idea of how social media can help businesses, let’s get to know how you can launch your business on social media and thrive.
Launching business on social media
It’s no news that the main aim behind businesses using social media platforms is to share enticing content that their audience can relate to, engage and share, thus helping the company in gaining more brand exposure.
Being a new business intending to launch on social media we must plan and understand the intricacies of it’s marketing. Without delay, let’s get on to the steps of launching a business on social media.
1. Set clear goals
To begin a business’s social media marketing journey, the first step is to set a clear goal. You need to be very clear with your marketing KPIs. A result-oriented content and social media strategy will translate into long-term brand benefits.
While launching a business you must figure out the grounds for a successful launch campaign.
Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:
- How much are you planning to invest?
- What do you think will be the factor that you’ll analyse to conclude that your business launch was a success?
- Whether it will be the impressions, content engagement, or business inquiry, what are you going to analyse?
- If you are planning to count on revenue or business inquiry, then how many inquiries would mean that your social media business launch was a success?
All of these small details are going to help you conclude whether what you planned is correct for your brand or is there a need to improvise.
Related read: How to measure social media success for your small business: 10+ metrics to track
2. Understand your audience
Before getting started with social media marketing, it is very important to know your customer base. What do they like to read, watch or hear on social media, what are their preferences, how do they use these platforms, their online behaviour, and activities, what do they want from it, knowing the demographics, etc?
Related read: How to define and reach your target audience as an eCommerce business
Proper planning will give scope to answer these questions and devise the strategy of using these platforms and also fixing upon the content appreciable by our customer base.
These answers help marketers plan, curate, and syndicate understandable, relevant, and useful content to their customer base.
3. Choose the best social media platforms
The most important step for a business launch is choosing the best-suited platforms for the brand.
Amongst the clutter of social media platforms, it is important for a business to understand the intricacies of each platform and which platform will be the best to launch and engage the target audience.
Different Social Media Platforms to choose from:
- Snapchat
- Youtube
- TikTok
Related read: 5 Unconventional social media platforms for small businesses to sell on
4. Do not miss out on influencer marketing
Influencer marketing across all industries is booming. It is no more a buzzword, but a regular practice by brands and businesses.
This is because content from influencers is trusted more by consumers, and it was anticipated to experience a 25% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, with an estimated market value of 28 billion Indian rupees by 2026.
So, when you are on the verge of launching your business there’s nothing better than word-of-mouth publicity by influencers, as this marketing strategy will set a pace for your brand launch and create a sense of excitement amongst your audience.
5. Plan your content & design assets
Nothing beats a great content strategy. And when you are launching your business, plan sharing glimpses of your product or services with attractive visual elements and content.
Before and on your eCommerce business’s launch day, you will require several visuals and content pieces loaded up and ready to go that can be closely monitored and optimised in real time.
Some examples of visual assets that you can plan include high-quality product images and videos, both long and short; GIFs and memes.
Related read: Why You Need Videos in Your Social Media Marketing Plan + 3 Free Tools
Planning your content will help you escape the content block that you might have while being overwhelmed with a lot of tasks to do at once.
While you plan your content & visual assets make sure that they are catered for the different formats of the different social media platforms.
6. Set a timeline for the launch
Adding a timeline or a set launch date will help you prioritise your efforts. With a set date, you know when you have to implement your strategies and plans.
The worst thing a brand can do on social media is to push back or forward the planned dates. So it’s best to add a timeline to your initial plan and bifurcate it into different levels of activities and initiatives that you are going to put in for the business launch.
Planning – Your key to a successful business launch
Planning every aspect will provide a brief guideline about the actions to be taken for its effective usage as you launch your business. These planned strategies can provide a framework for monitoring the results of the activities initiated.
And ultimately the success of your brand launch will always depend on how well you understood and planned your social media strategies.
So, do not be overwhelmed with the clutter of brands and content on Social media, just try and offer value to your customers and nothing can stop you from an effective brand launch.
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