The Power Of Social Media Marketing - How It Can Help You Sell More

Est. Reading: 6 minutes
March 25, 2022

Social media marketing has become a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience. In fact, according to HubSpot, social profiles generate 67% of all leads today.

But what exactly is social media marketing? And why should you care?

Whether you're running a small business or a large corporation, social media marketing can help you grow your brand.

Do you have a social media presence? If yes, you should take advantage of its potential to promote your business. The good thing about social media marketing is that it can be done at a minimal cost compared to other forms of advertising.

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are now considered essential tools for businesses to connect with their customers. This has led to various platforms explicitly designed to cater to these companies.

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Social media plays a crucial role in the success of any business. In fact, according to research conducted by Hubspot, 80% of consumers trust recommendations from friends or family members over paid advertisements.

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Photographer: Dragos Condrea

Is social media marketing worth it?

Social media marketing strategies are a proven method of generating qualified traffic from a target audience. But how much does it cost? And what should you expect from it?

If you've never done any before, then it might seem expensive. After all, it costs money to hire someone to manage your accounts and maintain your posts.

However, if you already have a budget for paid advertising, you can leverage posts to boost your ROI further.

You'd be surprised at how many businesses undervalue the potential of social media platforms. If you're looking to grow your business, your social media profile is an affordable way to do so.

Social platforms aren't just for broadcasting messages. They are also a great way to generate interest in particular topics and boost conversion rates.

You should focus on engaging users rather than simply pushing content out to achieve this. For example, when someone asks a question, reply by providing an answer that shows your expertise. Or, if you run a blog, ask readers for feedback.

As long as you know what you're doing, you should see results within weeks.

You could even try experimenting with different types of posts, such as images and videos, to see what works best for your audience.

Advantages of social media marketing

Social media marketing is a fantastic opportunity to build relationships with customers and prospects by connecting directly. It's also highly effective at spreading information about your company and generating interest in your products and services.

Social media marketing strategies are now widely accepted as a highly efficient way to market virtually any product or service to potential customers.

While traditional forms of advertising such as television and print ads are still effective, they often cost huge amounts of money. But marketing on social platforms costs next to nothing, in comparison, to produce and distribute.

It's like word-of-mouth advertising where consumers share and overshare information about brands and products they love.

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Scaling the heights of professional success requires more than just determination – you need the right resources. Explore our library and equip yourself with the knowledge to climb higher and achieve more.

It's free to get started, so why wouldn't you use it? If you decide to invest in paid advertising, consider how much of your audience is actively engaging your brand on social media. You may just discover that social media ads would be a better fit and another way to reach potential customers.

Disadvantages of social media marketing

While often seen as a free marketing channel, it comes with its own set of disadvantages. Here are five reasons you shouldn't rely on social media marketing alone.

Social channels take time. If you're serious about growing your business, you should invest in good marketing tools. You'll be getting all sorts of data if your social media strategy is set, so you'll need tools that will help you dig through that data. Something like Later is suitable for posting, but is it giving you a high-level view of the data collected?

Social media channels are impersonal. Unlike email marketing, where you can personalize every message, social media marketers know that by the time a customer reaches your social media, it's for a few reasons:

  • either a customer satisfaction moment or,
  • a satisfied customer is leaving a nice bit of social proof (not going to focus on negativity in this article, it's all lollipops and rainbows!).

A cohesive brand story is necessary at all points on social media.

  • All social media platforms are noisy. There are over 2 billion active users on social media platforms, so you may end up lost in the sea of content if you don't stand out. Virality isn't guaranteed at all.
  • A targeted social media campaign can be expensive. If you're in a highly competitive niche, you'll go up against some pretty big names. The social media darlings of the world like Wendy's might be hard to maneuver around if you're trying to get your fledgling burger joint an audience.
  • Social channel algorithms change very frequently. When Instagram was in its infancy, it focused on attractive photos and hashtags. Now businesses are finding its recent move to focus more on video is causing havoc to some brand's strategies. Your social media strategy will constantly be evolving, whether you like it or not.

How to use TikTok for business

While most business owners think of TikTok as a platform for music artists, actors, and comedians, it has a considerable following among businesses.

With over 1 billion active monthly users, TikTok is the second largest social network by the number of monthly active users, behind only Facebook.

Companies are starting to use TikTok to promote themselves to capitalize on this popularity.

The reason why is because it offers a platform where people can share funny memes, lip sync videos, dance challenges, and more.

It's similar to Vine, only much longer. Users upload up to 15 seconds long videos and then share them across multiple platforms.

Most people know TikTok for its fun factor; it's a powerful marketing tool. Here are two ways (plus one bonus) that I think will help your business leverage it for business:

  • Highlight exclusives. This engaging content of bringing your customer into the "life" of your brand is one of the quickest methods to ingratiate your brand to your audience. It brings some "real" to your brand instead of a faceless corporation. Not to mention you can also parlay this into user-generated content and loyalty. Show your customer something only they can get for watching your TikTok or something only available in-store. Wake-n-Bakery used this method and saw an 80 percent boost in sales versus pre-TikTok video!
  • Behind the scenes fun. This post type works incredibly well for small businesses that have been around a while, and the consensus is that it "feels" like a big brand. Taking your audience for a trip behind the curtain will humanize your brand.
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Photographer: Dragos Condrea
  • Hop on the challenge train. TikTok is pretty organic in its virality. One way to get your business in on this organic virality is to encourage employees to partake in work-safe challenges on your brand's TikTok profile. Even big-name music artists know that challenges can be a fun part of social media marketing.

In conclusion, social media networks are robust and still relevant because it allows us to connect with our audiences in a way that was never possible before. It will enable us to turn our customer base into loyal customers with minimal customer service interaction.

There are plenty of tools to help you manage your accounts, and the quality of these tools has improved dramatically over the past decade.

However, it's important to remember that social media marketing isn't just about posting content. It's not even just about creating an engaging account.

You have to create a plan and follow it. If you don't, you'll quickly become overwhelmed and frustrated.

Ready to start bringing in revenue from your social media content? Grab our free social media guide, and then schedule your onboarding for our social media management!

Owner and Founder of TopOut Group. Born and raised in Chicago, IL. Technophile.

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