We all know how difficult it is to start a business. Starting a business takes years of hard work in terms of time, money, and resources. Thus, proper planning and implementation is crucial for your business to flourish.
This is a digital era where businesses are driven by technology. Technology empowers businesses to grow and reach new heights. One such powerful tool is social media.
You can imagine the power of social networking with the fact that the number of worldwide active users is 4.2 Bn, around a third of Earth’s entire population. (Source: Statista – Feb 2021).
Numbers are saying it all, the potential of social media to reach billions of people with just a simple click. It is one of the most lucrative ways to a booming business. Through social media, your business can reach an untapped market that wouldn’t be possible using traditional marketing.
12 Ways in which Social Media Marketing can benefit Startups and New Businesses
The new era of modern technology has opened so many avenues for businesses to flourish. Businesses have the potential to grow fast through social media. Since social media has the potential to open several opportunities for businesses, creating proper social media strategies could be tedious. If you’re an entrepreneur looking for ways to promote your business through social media, this article will prove helpful.
Here are 12 ways social media marketing can benefit startups and new businesses:
1. Strengthens Your Brand
Having an online presence with effective social media tools helps strengthen your brand by promoting it. The more content your audience can connect with, the stronger they associate with your brand. It also helps in creating more brand awareness for your customers. Brand awareness in turn also induces customer loyalty and trust. Having a loyal customer base increases the retention rate of customers.
2. Boosts Traffic to Your Website
Social media helps in boosting traffic to your website in many ways. Some effective ways to boost traffic to your website with using hashtags, creating engaging content, posting consistently, meme marketing, etc. The content you create through social media marketing helps drive traffic back to your website through backlinks.
3. Helps in Better Customer Service
A major issue that customers complain about is delayed response from companies. An email sent to the support team usually takes a window of 24 hours to resolve. By creating a social media team, you can engage customers and resolve their queries at the same time.
Let’s say you’ve launched a new product and have advertised it on social media and other channels. You can address your customers’ queries by simply replying to their comments on the post or the messages. It doesn’t only make it easier but also shows other customers how responsive you are.
4. Broadens Your Audience
Social media is a powerful tool especially when you want to broaden your market. It helps you reach a broader audience. Creating content that resonates with your target audience helps in reaching them more effectively. Social media advertisements have the option to customize your advertisement for your desired target audience. You can always customize it as and when you want to broaden your target market.
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5. Helps in Analysing Your Audience
Popular social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are equipped with robust tools that help in analysing your audience. When you create a post, you can view insights in terms of impressions, engagement, reach, etc. You can further delve deeper into your audience’s age group, geographics, etc. This helps you in understanding what type of content was preferred by which category/group of audience. You can further plan and create your future social media strategies based on the metrics of your current posts.
6. Improves Organic Search Results
Various factors improve organic search results. The website’s content, meta tags, alt text, ad rank, keywords, etc., are responsible for organic results. If your content is in line with your startup/business, it helps in optimizing your website through SEO. Sharing your content on different social media channels helps your page/website appear in organic search results.
7. Customization
If you’re a startup dealing in niche products, you know how important it is to tap that niche. When it comes to a niche market, the size of your audience is already small. In such a scenario, you want to make sure that your advertisement reaches your desired audience.
Imagine putting up an advertisement, only to realize that the advertisement did not reach the intended target audience. Social media marketing helps you in customizing your ads for your intended audience. You can create different social media campaigns for different audiences. Customized content also creates brand resonance in the minds of the customer.
8. Enhances Your Visibility
As a startup, you are competing with several established and new brands. It is crucial that you build a strong brand image that helps you stand out from your competitors. Social media marketing expands your visibility on different platforms. Your content will pique the interest of potential customers and strengthen your online presence. You can be a step ahead of your competitors by creating the right kind of content.
Related: SWOT Analysis for Businesses: an Effective Strategic Tool
9. Competitor Analysis
Social media marketing tools also help you in tracking your competition. Social media can give you a comprehensive insight into your competitor’s activity, their customer engagement, content, etc. This will help you in analyzing your competitors. Many social media platforms are equipped with analytical tools that generate comprehensive reports. The insights could also help you in planning your future social media campaigns more creatively than your competitors.
10. Cost-Effectiveness
One of the major advantages of social media marketing is its cost-effectiveness. If we do a cost-benefit analysis of social media in comparison to traditional marketing, social media is going to take the win. Whether you are posting promotional content, doing promotional campaigns, or just posting regular posts, you can do it for almost free.
Many startups have been able to generate customers organically through their social media content. If you’re a startup with a tight marketing budget, you can initially use free platforms to promote your business. Once you attain a substantial number of followers or audience, you may invest in paid campaigns.
11. Networking
Another major significance of social media marketing is networking. Social media platforms can also be used for networking with other businesses. Many businesses create collaborations on social media to promote their businesses. Healthy collaborations increase customer engagement. It also helps in building long-term business relations with other companies.
12. Helps in Retargeting
In businesses where there is a huge bounce rate, social media comes to the rescue. 8/10 users that visit your product may leave without purchasing anything. Here’s how social media marketing can help in reaching the other 8 users. When a customer visits a website, cookies store that information. Now when those customers visit a social media site that uses a retargeting service, they will be able to see the ads of those products. This helps in giving those 8 users a ‘nudge’ to purchase your products.
We are in an era where creating a buzz or viral content can boom your business tremendously. However, many startups make the mistake of not planning their social media activities. Improper planning can lead to inconsistency which in turn can lose the interest of your audience.
Here are some ways in which you can use social media marketing effectively:
- Plan your social media activities: Start with selecting the theme of your posts and plan your content accordingly. Choose specific days to post your content and monitor your progress.
- Use moment marketing: A robust social media marketing strategy is Moment Marketing. Look out of major festivals, current affairs, etc., and align your content in relation to them. This increases the chances of your posts getting shared by other users. A great example of Moment Marketing is the brand Amul.
- Be consistent in your social media activity: Make sure that your posts go live on the planned date. Ensure that your posts are ready before the deadline so that your social media activity goes according to plan.
- Collaborations: Make sure to have at least 2-3 collaborations in a month. These collaborations may not be with big brands. You may begin with startups like yours and then move on to bigger brands. You may also collaborate with bloggers and influencers for a broader audience.
- Tell your brand’s story: It is important for your audience to resonate with the brand. One effective way of doing so is by telling your brand’s story. You may also tell your audience about your employees and how hard they work to curate products/services for their audience.
- Use Hashtags: Hashtags help in creating social media engagement with new users. They help in generating organic followers and customers. Businesses can attract new users that explore those hashtags.
Having a social media presence is pivotal for new businesses today. With smartphones becoming one of the most important tools of our lives, social media has become one for new businesses. From promotions, affiliate marketing, social media marketing to customer engagement and redressal, social media has become pivotal. It can be easily said that social media is the new oil for businesses.
