Small business owners need all the strategic help they can get to grow their brands. Social media has proven to be an efficient and cost friendly way for businesses to get and stay ahead in a virtual business world. Through the platform, brands have been able to engage in personal selling and interaction, target potential clients, receive customer feedback and offer customer service. It has slowly evolved to become the one stop shop for brands looking to grow.
While social media holds a lot of promise, it can also be a risky avenue for brands who do not engage in careful and strategic activity online. Even though it holds some promise, it can quickly become injurious to brands that do not take up social media best practices to protect themselves and their reputation. Your target audience of a million internet users could become a million-strong force against your brand if your reputation takes a hit as a result of your activity online.
Can social media really be beneficial to your brand? We look at the top benefits you could stand to accrue.
Higher brand awareness
Do members of your target audience identify your brand as a leader in its field? Are they able to tell what kind of products or services you offer? The increased interest in brands on the internet has enabled brands to grow their awareness among their target audiences. With a increased number of eyes trained on your brand, it is easy to achieve quick growth in your level of awareness. Small businesses can benefit from this perk by leveraging the platform for rapid growth.
Brand loyalty
The longevity of your business entity, regardless of its size, revolves around its ability to attract loyal clients. You are more likely to ensure prolonged brand activity if you maintain loyal clients as opposed to attracting new ones. As business takes up a more virtual front, brand loyalty is poised to play an even more integral role in brand survival. Trends in earnings and revenues from online businesses suggest that most online purchases are made by return customers, as opposed to new sales. This suggests that you should consider setting up on social media to maintain engagement with your followers and clients to increase your ability to ensure sustained growth.
A medium to build brand equity
Customers hold some equity in your brand. By making a purchase, they are effectively turning from prospective clients to actual investors in your business. Like any other investors, you will need to earn their trust by ensuring they understand the value to them. You can build equity with your prospective clients by engaging with them and sharing informative or entertaining content. Social media facilitates this be providing a platform through which brands can share interactive content with clients and help to grow both their awareness and interest.
It can humanize your brand
The ability of a brand to create real world connections with its potential clients is a signifier of great presentation of brand values, which enables clients to connect better. By embracing and portraying certain values, such as looking out for your customers’ interests, taking care of your employees and interacting with other brands and potential clients, you will be able to humanize your brand enough to build high and lasting trust levels. Social media facilitates social advocacy, which allows you to p[resent and explore these aspects to help make your brand more relatable and of interest to your clients. Facebook can be a great platform for this type of advocacy.
It can elevate you into thought leadership
Thought leaders are the go-to sources of information in their respective fields of interest. By making your brand a thought leader, you will be able to improve positive brand association and grow your profile. Thought leadership can be attained through sustained and accurate presentation of information on a variety of relevant topics. Even though it is commonly overlooked, thought leadership can be a marketing strategy to elevate your brand. By building trust in your brand, thought leadership allows you a better opportunity to win over clientele than most other businesses are afforded, which can be a vital edge in an otherwise competitive field. In order to become a thought leader, you should pursue consistency, accuracy and relevance in all your social media activity.
It can increase your presence
There are many brands available to consumers, which makes it difficult to stay relevant in an otherwise competitive field. Will a new product sweep away your clients from under your feet? Do you have what it takes to stay ahead of the competition? Are you marketing your brand enough? These are popular questions for brands, especially those that are already dwarfed by other major players in their fields of interest. For many businesses, getting desired reach is a matter of maintaining relevance to clients. It makes sense that these businesses should consider social media because it offers prolonged interest by potential clients. For instance, the high rate of regular activity may be sufficient reason for brands to consider marketing themselves on the platform. You can buy 50 instagram followers to increase your visibility on the platform, as well as consider retargeted advertisements on Facebook and promoted Tweets on Twitter to get ahead of other brands and increase your visibility.
Helps to develop the right partnerships
Social media is a great platform to build brand partnerships that are designed to help grow your brand presence and awareness levels. On the platform, you can connect with thought leaders, influential brands, influencers and other personas that could help you grow your brand. By taking up these partnerships, you could help your brand achieve growth quicker than any offline strategies could offer. You need to determine the best social media platform for your type of brand, as well as your preferred target audience, to maximize the benefit to your brand. Many brands have considered LinkedIn and other similar platforms to develop the right partnerships for their brands.
