It’s been a long while since anyone described social media as “a flash in the pan” and the importance of social media marketing and management is now generally accepted. However, it’s easy to tell apart the companies and brands who understand the true value social media brings and those who haven’t quite twigged yet.
The aims of any social media activity can’t be to simply gain like, fans, followers, retweets, and regrams etc. These metrics matter but they are the means to an end, not the end itself. Social media management is much much more than a popularity contest – and the more a company understands that, the more we can help them achieve through social media.
The companies that Red Stag serves – businesses involved in fieldsports, agriculture, energy, outdoor life, country lifestyle, etc – typically are targeting niche markets. Social media – and the way we can target potential clients by age, location, and interests – is the perfect precision marketing vehicle for such businesses, regardless of whether they are B2B or B2C. Aside from that, here are some other ways social media can benefit a business.
Increased brand awareness.
It’s the most obvious, but social media is a great way introduce people to your brand and keep yourself on their radar. It’s all very well having a website, but that relies on people visiting it. With social media, you can take your brand to the people – which makes social media an incredibly potent tool.
It builds trust
Social media is powerfully effective at legitimising brands and businesses. A website (often a collection a static pages that don’t really update much beyond launch) establishes that a brand exists, good social media marketing proves that a brand is active. Social media is a great way to show potential clients that you are authentic, that you “walk the walk”. It allows businesses to have a character and personality that – done right – potential clients will identify with and buy into. That authenticity, that trust, is very powerful at building brand loyalty.
The reverse is also true – poor social media management can really harm a brand. If a potential client visits a brand’s social media profile and finds nothing has been posted for a few months, they’ll assume the business is no longer trading. Likewise, if customers are asking for help via direct message or via a comment and they’re ignored they will – rightly – assume the business has poor customer service.
Increase in sales
At the end of day, your company’s social media activity has to make a difference to your bottom line. Otherwise, why do it? And it’s also true to say the brand awareness and trust built through your social media activity will lead to more sales. However, as mentioned before, social media allows us to target potential clients (ones that don’t even follow your company) based on demographics and interests. This precision targeting is a hugely powerful way of reaching potential clients with information about special offers, new products, etc.
In our experience, no one likes a social media profile that just spams out sales messages day in, day out. That’s a sure-fire way to get your company unfollowed or – worse still – blocked. At Red Stag, we believe in balancing the sales messages with other, useful content.
Social networks know a lot about their users’ interests and demographic details. Even though there are hundreds of millions of users, Red Stag can help your company target the right people with the right message.
Better customer service
Your company will have a phone line and email all set up, but customers will get in touch with you via social media looking for advice and support. And it’s important that these queries are handled through whatever method of communication the customer prefers. Now, the fact that potential clients will use social media to get in touch is reason enough for your company to ensure its ability to help people through social media. But we believe this also links back building trust – being receptive and quick to respond to queries can make a huge difference to brand loyalty.
Content distribution and promotion
Social media plays a key part in any content strategy. Whether your company is to promoting a blog or case study on its website, or video on YouTube, social media is responsible for the overwhelming majority of traffic referrals across the web. It’s a great way of getting content to your followers and fans and enabling them to engage and interact with it. This is crucial as most social platforms use an algorithm based on engagement to curate what fans and followers see organically in their timelines. In plain English – the more people interact with your posts, the more posts from your company will crop up in their timelines. All of which increases the chance of your company’s content being shared. And, as mentioned a few times already, social media allows us to promote content to potential clients beyond your company’s followers, targeted through demographics and interests.
All of the above points – and all the data we have to hand – show that social media marketing and management brings big benefits to businesses. As well as increasing brand awareness, building trust and loyalty, social media can make a big difference to the bottom line. Not only is social media marketing something businesses need to do, it’s something they need to do well.
Red Stag offers a range of social media services – from short-run campaigns and training to full service management. For an informal chat (guaranteed no sales pitch),