Are you maximizing the full potential of social media management to grow your brand?
Social media today has created unprecedented opportunities for brands with the ability to engage directly with both existing and potential customers. Just some of the benefits of social media include:
- Building brand awareness
- Discovering valuable insights about your customers
- Developing a stronger value proposition
- Handling complaints quickly
With over 4 billion internet users today, the latest numbers show that 87% of those same users are reportedly on social media.
What’s more?
They spend an average of 144 minutes on their accounts, daily
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- 200 million social media users visit at least one business profile a day
- 63% expect customer service from the company pages they visit
- 76% of buyers are ready to have a social media conversation with potential providers
Bottom Line: You need a plan.
Your competitors are only a click away and ready to take over where YOU lose out in terms of managing your brand across your social media business pages.
What Is Social Media Management?
Social media management is the process of creating, scheduling, analyzing, listening, and engaging with content posted on social media platforms.
Managing your social media goes far beyond simply posting updates to your Facebook business page or replying to comments a couple of times a week. It’s the process of managing a complete social media strategy.
Your social media strategy should include tasks such as:
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- creating content
- responding to comments and messages
- analyzing followers and their interactions with your brand
- analyzing social media data for valuable insights to ensure growth
The goal is to engage with current customers and create new ones, as part of the promotion and purchase of your products and services.
The Importance of Social Media Management for Business
Social media management can play a significant role in business success in today’s digital world. It has the potential to propel your company above your competitors and get your customers more engaged with your brand.
For example, seventy-eight percent of marketers are now using Instagram. Expected to grow to 1.2 billion users by 2023, Instagram is the top choice for brands on social media. Why?
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- 90% of Instagram users follow a brand.
- 54% have bought something from a brand right after seeing the item, product or service promoted on Instagram.
In fact, social media users report they use at least one or more social networks before making buying decisions.
There are several other benefits of marketing your brand across social media networks as well.
Increased Brand Awareness & Trust
Social media platforms connect users in your market or service area with your brand, increasing your brand awareness and leading to more customers.
Social media helps you connect with potential customers in your local market or reach niche audiences.
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- Approximately one in three people use social media to learn about or discover new products, services, or brands.
An established and well-maintained social media presence for your business also creates a cohesive brand across all of your social streams, feeds, and platforms.
Posting consistently to your accounts and engaging with users by responding to comments and messages helps create trust in your brand through consistency.
Increased Revenue
Engaging with customers through posts, contests, promotions, campaigns and ads also turns followers into customers.
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- Brands that published 15 posts/month averaged 1,200 new leads
- Content marketing, such as posting on social media, produces 3x more leads/$
- Over 90% of consumers who follow a brand on social media purchase something from that brand
- 71% of consumers are likely to recommend a brand on social media after having a positive experience
Improved Customer Service & Relationship Management
A highly effective social media management strategy includes active listening to know exactly what your customers say is important to THEM.
- 70% of clients who contact a business via Facebook expect a response within 60 minutes
- 70% of people expect to message businesses more in the future for customer service questions
- 64% of people would rather message than call a business
- 69% of U.S. Facebook users who message businesses say it makes them feel more confident about a brand
Most customers agree that no response to their questions translates to a ‘no’ on any purchase of company products or services.
Social Media is Cost Effective
Any business, no matter how large their marketing budget may be, can use social media as a cost-effective marketing strategy.
It doesn’t cost any money to create a social media business account, post content to those accounts, and respond to comments and messages.
Even advertising on social media can be a more profitable, less costly way of reaching your target audience.
However, there’s a lot more that goes into your social media management and strategy plan, often best left to professionals.
Align Marketing Initiatives with User Behavior
By incorporating social media management into your marketing strategy, you can better align your brand’s marketing efforts with user behavior.
For example:
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- 80% of people get advice about purchases through social media
- 74% of people now use social media when making purchase decisions
Social media can help you connect with and develop a relationship with potential customers.
Social platforms enable brands to reach their target audience and gain an understanding of how they interact with businesses. When you have a better understanding of your target audience’s behavior, you can create a more tailored marketing strategy.
Social Media Management Tools
Trying to run a business and manage your social media brand effectively can be overwhelming. Fortunately there are many social media management tools available to help you create, plan, and schedule social media content efficiently.
In addition to creating and scheduling social media posts, social media management tools can help you with the following:
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- monitor your community
- measure your campaigns, ad, and content performance in one place
- present metrics and offer insights into what works and what doesn’t
Some of the best social media management tools include:
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- Loomly: With Loomly, you can create social media calendars and the tool will automatically generate post and ad previews before you hit publish. You can also respond to messages and comments from your customers and view post analytics.
- Buffer: Buffer is another useful tool that can help with managing all your social accounts in one place. With this tool you can schedule posts, engage with customers, and analyze social campaigns.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This tool is particularly useful for responding to messages with its Social Inbox and the social monitoring feature lets you to track your brand on social media using keyword search.
- SocialPilot: SocialPilot also has a social inbox, as well as analytics for measuring performance. The social media management tool also lets you bulk-publish or auto-publish posts.
- Hootsuite: Perhaps the most well known tool, Hootsuite manages social media accounts in one place. It also allows you to reply to comments and monitor your social media performance.
The main problem you may encounter with these social media management tools is that they may take some time to learn how to use. A marketing agency that offers social media management services will already have the necessary tools to effectively manage your social media accounts.
Why Use Social Media Management Services?
In addition to having the right tools and expertise, a professionally managed social media network also comes down to time….
As a business owner or manager, do you have time to learn how to manage (do-it-yourself) your social media marketing? Or leave it to chance to those at your company who may also be learning as they go?
Yes, you want to operate your business efficiently, but at what cost to your brand and company reputation?
An angry or even well-meaning employee with access to your social channels can drive your business into the ground in less than a minute with just a single post or comment.
Experienced social media managers have solid judgment and skills, as they understand the social media space. They have the right tools to engage with social media users and the expertise to align strategy with your company’s business objectives.
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- As growth managers, they develop plans tailored for your business; based on your company promotions, customer journey, and sales cycle.
- As brand guardians, they protect your image by making sure every post, ad and social media channel representing your business looks great from start to finish.
- Pros can also analyze the efficacy of your social media and optimize your return on investment.
Professional social media management services take the guesswork out of making sure your brand is operating like a well-oiled machine across your social networks to get the results you need to grow your business.
Now that you know the importance of social media management: are you ready to take your brand to the next level with professional services?
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your needs.
We are a friendly and affordable turn-key marketing agency with lots of experience managing clients’ social media platforms. From website design and boosting your Google rankings to creating your print collateral and writing blogs: we do all things marketing. We specialize in helping small businesses play big.
