Whether your company has embraced social media or shunned it, the hard-to-ignore reality is that social media is important, relevant and highly useful to individuals and companies of all sizes.
Before you start with cries of not having enough time or energy, consider the top five reasons that social media can help your business.
- Become an expert. Through social media you can become a trusted resource about your particular niche area. With careful posts and discussions, you can easily create an energy about you and your company that helps to give you an expert voice. This gives potential customers and clients confidence in your skills, knowledge and ability.
- Increase conversions. What do we mean by ‘conversions’? It’s great if you drive people to your site, but these days more than ever people want to make connections with others. If someone lands on your website via your social media or they direct themselves there because of some social media contact with you, they feel they already know you, know about your company and will be more likely to actually do business with you. Those website visits, then, will more than likely convert into sales.
- Tell your story. Through your social media efforts, you can tell others the story of your company, not just how it started or what you do, but who you are. One thing we have learned about social media is that people like to do business with companies they know, that they feel comfortable with. Telling your story of who you are, what‘s important to you and why others should be invested in your success is a natural way to share that story and develop a larger customer base.
- Get help. Don’t operate in a vacuum. Through social media outreach efforts, you can get help when you need it. Trying to create a video to place on Facebook? There’s likely someone who can help you and you can find them through social media. In turn, you might be able to help someone else.
- Develop your brand. As we all know, branding is critical to the success of our companies. It’s important that we think about who we are and what we do. Once you understand that and the culture of your company, you can work on developing that brand. By participating regularly in social media efforts, you create that brand. Whether your company is all business or a bit quirky, mainstream or counter-culture, you can help others understand your company’s brand before they deal with you directly.
Engaging in social media efforts might seem like a time-consuming thing to do, but a few minutes a day can reap huge rewards, including more business, a clearer business focus and perhaps even a few new friends.
