Benefits of Social Media Marketing for your company

Social media marketing entails the use of social media platforms such as Google+, Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to your website, or get more customers to your door. It can also be seen as electronic word of mouth, as it provides users with a platform to socialise with people or businesses.

If optimised correctly, a social media platform can become very beneficial for your business. It is important to remember that once you have established a social media platform, it needs to be maintained, updated and checked regularly. This will ensure that you do not miss important complaints or comments, showing your clients (and prospective clients) that they are important to you.

The benefits of social media marketing for you company

By Having a social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, enables your customers to interact with your business. This creates the opportunity to build an online personality for your company, and to build relationships with users and clients. By building relationships with clients you are able to find out what they want, need, and expect from your company (see where we’re getting at?).

aving well-maintained social media platform, you will increase your brand’s awareness. This can influence the shopping behaviour of users, when reaching prospective clients with relevant information. It also creates a sense of legitimacy, offering reputable sources of information about your company.
The many benefits of social media (as stated by Hootsuit.com) includes:

• It offers a very easy way to learn more about your audience and clients – Using your social media platform’s insights, you will have access to information like age, gender and location – all of which will support your marketing efforts.
• You are able to target audiences more efficiently – You can send out a message or advert targeted to a very specific audience in specific areas.
• You are able to expand your audience by finding and targeting new customers – Reach out to social media users with social media tools (Such as hashtags).
• Direct two-way communication with clients – Most social media platforms provide your clients the ability to communicate with your business and vice versa.
• You have the chance to gain a competitive advantage above your competition – Gain important information about your competitors, to improve your market intelligence.
• Increase traffic to your website with social media – Posting links to your website on your social media page can drive more traffic to your website and certain landing pages. This goes hand-in-hand with content marketing.
• Content has the ability to go viral – this means that more people will be reached when sharing content with your followers.
• Create positive business relationships with your clients – keep your clients up to date, and give them the opportunity to give their opinion.

Choosing social media platforms for your company

When it comes to social media marketing, you are bombarded with options of social media network. It is important to familiarise yourself with these networks, in order to choose the most suitable networks for your company. You can also make use of Siteweb, a leading online marketing company in Gauteng, to setup and manage your Social Media Platforms.

When looking at social media platforms, the following information might help you with your choice. In South Africa (2013 statistics), there are 5.5 million Twitter users, 9.4 million Facebook users, and 466 828 active Google+ users (which is 0.7% of the global Google+ base). South Africa’s top five most-visited sites are: Google, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Yahoo (Source: World Wide Worx / www.itweb.co.za).

Choose your dedicated social media pages for your company, and start building your social platforms to reap the benefits.