Social Media has been around since the 1980s and 1990s with facilities such as bulletin boards and internet relay chat; however, it has only recently come with prevalence to the mainstream. You may have noticed this from the emergence of Social Media titans such as Facebook, Linked In, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and many more. However, as creators of the networks, these businesses weren’t the only ones to benefit from the social media boom. Many companies worldwide have encompassed the growth and explosion of social media for their benefit, whether to distribute viral content across the globe to millions of people in seconds or to advertise sales. For example, if you’re a high-quality, cheap wholesale cabinet supplier, you can expand your reach to potential customers.
Why is it so vital?
Now we are going to look at some of the reasons why social media is vital to the success of businesses and break down each of the points:-
- It is extremely cost-effective – before, social media companies would spend thousands or even more for TV or Radio adverts and campaigns; however, the actual cost of posting content on social media is free – creating the content is the only cost.
- It gets your brand out there – close to 2 billion people use Facebook, a huge potential audience for your brand, more so than any other method except word of mouth.
- You can speak to your customers – rather than having to wait days for a reply to an email or waiting on hold on the phone, they can tweet your company’s page or message you through Facebook and respond in a much timelier manner.
- Increased traffic to your website – you can immensely increase the traffic heading to your website by persuading visitors to your social media pages to visit your website, thus bringing awareness of products and services.
- Social Media and consistency are now a key part of modern SEO formulas to increase your rank on search engines such as Google.
- Customers can provide feedback and get their concerns dealt with faster through social media channels. They will also feel more valued as customers when they have a personalized reply on your social media page rather than having a generic answer provided over the phone or through email.
- You can boost your reputation both in the industry and the marketplace – acts of goodwill and good PR statements can help improve your company’s reputation.
A final few words
Very few modern-day companies have managed to thrive, and even more survive without integrating social media in all parts of their business plan and strategy. Today, we’ve looked at just some of the benefits of including social media in your system. These aren’t the only advantages, but some of the main ones that a business considering the implementation of social media would be interested in and persuaded towards. It is also important that you do social media right, as any oversight or negligence in how you go about your social media channels can be equally as harmful as it can be productive and beneficial to your company. But, if something offensive is posted on your social media account rather than positively reaching millions, it has done the opposite.