The Role of Social Media in Business
by Rachel Summers
From its humble origins as a platform for students to communicate, social media has taken the world by storm and changed almost every kind of interaction. These changes include how we do business, and there’s a huge possibility that these changes will keep coming and developing in the future. For now, there are certain core areas where the role of social media is undeniable, and any business not implementing social media could be facing a significant disadvantage compared to their competitors.
1. Personal Marketing
One of the highlights of social media is the fact that you can communicate directly with your customers. This is so much more engaging than previous ads where the customer couldn’t respond and had a purely passive role, as it provides a much better opportunity to build trust and a relationship. Also, while previous marketing strategies were based on age, social media marketing strategies consider much more and can aim ads directed at interests, locations, and even education, as well as a whole host other aspects. This allows you to communicate more directly with an audience that is much more relevant than on other platforms. Sources such as Social Media Today can help you stay on top of the latest trends in social media, as well as innovative ways to monitor success so you can keep constantly improving.
2. Promote Your Brand
As social media marketing is good for SEO, it helps with your search engine rankings, which in turn helps customers to find you. However, as many people are now searching directly on social media, you can make sure that your brand is properly represented there. Building up your brand over social media allows you access to millions of people for low cost, which can help your brand awareness and conversion rates grow massively. Hoot Suite is full of ideas and tips to promote awareness and information on how to use social media to your advantage when it comes to marketing.
3. Use Social Media for Human Resources
While it may sound bizarre to some older generations, many people do now use social media when they’re looking for jobs. This can be anything from checking the Facebook page of a potential employer to using LinkedIn to find potential jobs, but for whatever reason, it really does not make sense to miss out on good candidates just because you don’t have social media profiles. This can also help HR reps when they’re looking into initial candidates for a position. Your current staff can also tweet and share new job openings, which is a great way to recruit. Without social media, you could be missing out on some really great people. While tools such as Forbes may seem like they apply to big business, their studies on recruitment on social media for recruitment and marketing can be helpful to businesses of all sizes.
4. Figure Out What Works
When you’re sharing something across multiple platforms that can result in high levels of engagement, it’s really easy to see when a campaign or strategy isn’t working. Rather than wondering why nobody is clicking on your site, you can see how each individual post shared increases interaction. For example, you can see whether you need to hire a writer or editor for blog posts to improve their effect with UK Top Writers or need to overhaul your approach with different formats and kinds of advertising, tips for which can be found at Business 2 Community.
5. Links with Traditional Media
A successful social media campaign can get mentioned in traditional press, and sponsoring or hosting events can also lead to increased presence offline too.
Overall, there are no limits to the potential of a well-rounded social media campaign, and this is absolutely a feature that should be integrated across all aspects of your business.
Rachel Summers is a writer, local newspaper reporter, British journalist, and a freelance creative writer and editor. Follow Rachel on Twitter – https://twitter.com/racheljsummers
About the author
Digital Marketing Consultant and founder of JD Business Marketing.