Social Media for businesses is not an option anymore. Instead, it has become vital to reach your target audiences, attain essential insights, and expand your brand. Currently, social media usage is one of the most common online activities. In 2020, more than 3.6 billion people were on social media across the globe. Statista states this number will increase to nearly 4.41 billion in 2025.

Considering this situation, you miss out on something significant if your business does not have a social media presence. This blog discusses social media marketing, the benefits of social media marketing for a business, the benefits and disadvantages, and how to use it to grow your business. Let’s start.

Table of Contents

• What is Social Media Marketing?
• Growth of Social Media Marketing
• What is the benefit of Social Media Marketing for brand awareness
• Benefits of Social Media for expansion
• Benefits of Social Media Marketing for advertising
• Benefits of Social Media for communication
• Advantages of Social Media for improving ROI
• Benefits of Social Media for gaining insights

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing uses different platforms to promote a company’s products or services. It is an effective way for companies to reach their target audiences.

Your customers are already on social media and are interacting with different brands. So, you are at a significant loss if you do not communicate with them through various social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Why Is Social Media Important?

The number of Social Media users has been increasing yearly, and we expect the numbers will not come down anytime soon. Therefore, now is the right time to buckle up and learn social media tactics with our Social Media Marketing Courses, which will equip you with organic and paid social media tricks.

Here are a few social media marketing statistics that show the importance of social media marketing for a business.

Businesses of all types have started seeing social media differently. Now, social media is much more than a marketing tool. As a result, companies will rely more heavily on social media in the coming years than in previous years.

Targeting customers through social media has become one of the essential aspects of Digital Marketing. Social media is one of the main reasons why many businesses experience rapid growth. However, you might have noticed that some of your competitors have surpassed you.

In some instances, they are generating more leads, they can close deals faster, and their target audiences often remember them when purchasing decisions. But have you ever thought why so? The reason is they are implanting Social Media Marketing tactics into their business.

And where is your business currently?

You are attending cold calls, emails, and conventional advertising. There was a time when these things used to work. However, today, things have changed. So, now that you know the importance of social media for businesses, let us look at the top benefits of social media marketing.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Brand Awareness

1. Social Media Marketing helps increase brand awareness- social media is the most significant digital marketing way to increase a company’s visibility. Executing a social media marketing strategy will improve your brand recognition as you can engage with a substantial audience.

To create a social media presence for your business, create a profile and start communicating with others. For example, ask your employees, sponsors, and business partners to “like” and “share” your business page. People interacting with your brand will boost brand awareness and help build a reputation for your business.

A network of people who ultimately will become potential customers can see your post. Remember that the more people know about your business, the better result for your business.

Just by investing a few hours every week, over 91% of marketers said that social media marketing tactics helped increase the exposure of their business. There is no doubt that if you have a social media page, your brand will benefit from it. Regular updates will also generate a broad audience for your business.

2. Social media helps customers connect with your brand– The skill to build a real human connection is one of the essential benefits of social media for a business. Ensure you introduce your brand to those who make up your brand and show how your current customers use and like your products or services.

Remember, authenticity helps in building trust. And as we know, faith plays a vital role in driving new business. So, portray your brand as accurate to attract more audiences. And nothing can be a better place than social media to get real. Show your customers how well you embrace your brand values, how your product is beneficial in real life, and how you are concerned about your customers and employees.

3. Stay ahead– A 2021 study by Pew Research Center proves that 70% of social media users log into their accounts once regularly. In addition, around 49% of people check their social media accounts several times daily.

You can connect with your followers and fans whenever they log in to their social media accounts through social media. Try to keep your social media posts informative and entertaining. Very soon, your followers will be pleased to see your new content in their feeds, giving you so much importance that they think about your brand before purchasing.

Benefits of Social media marketing for expansion

4. Increases inbound traffic– If you do not advertise your brand on social media, your brand will get traffic only from your usual customers. Only customers who know your brand or are familiar with it will look for the keywords you are ranking.

Social Media Marketing is essential if you want new customers, not in your loyal customer circle. Social media is a melting pot of people with various behaviors and backgrounds. Posting your content on such platforms allows this group of customers to reach your business organically.

You can efficiently open your business to various versatile customers worldwide by marketing on social media. Each visit to your social media profile is a gateway to your website, and every content you post acts as an opportunity to attain a new customer.

5. Generate leads– Social media is a simple way for potential clients to express interest in your business and services. So lead generation is a significant benefit of social media for businesses that several social networks provide advertising formats especially created to collect leads.

6. Improves sales– Social media has a higher lead-to-close rate than any other marketing form. With more visibility from being on social media platforms, your brand will get more opportunities for converting potential customers into actual buyers.

Thus, using social media in marketing can prove to be beneficial for businesses.

7. Better Search Engine Rankings– Although posting on social media might get your business some traffic for your site, more effort is needed to see significant success. Search Engine Optimization is essential to attain high page ranking and traffic to your website.

Studies have proved that marketers who have been using social media for a year or longer have experienced an improvement in search engine rankings. Reforming in the top position for your keywords will increase your traffic and generate positive results for your brand.

We use Google to find information, and very few of us navigate after 1st page of the search results because we usually get their answer on the 1st page. Therefore, if your business does not rank in the top position of the search engine results, you should adjust your search engine optimization strategy.

To improve your ranking through social media, you must create high-quality content that includes all your targeted keywords. Content like case studies, blogs, business information, and blogs will make the social media presence of your business credible.

When you start posting quality content, you will build a social media community to increase followers who will “like” and “share” your content. But, most significantly, it will give you more chances to come across industry influencers who will write about your business and, in exchange, provide links to you, directly increasing search engine rankings.

What are the Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Advertising

8. Run targeted ads- Social ads are inexpensive to advertise your business and distribute content. They also provide robust targeting options to reach your target audiences efficiently and maximize your budget.

Savvy marketers have welcomed this significant benefit of social media for business: By 2022, advertisers will spend a vast amount of money on social media.

With ad targeting options including geography, demographic information, online behaviors, and language, you can curate messages that will best speak to various potential clients and only pay specifically for those viewers you want to reach.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Communication

9. Reputation management- Your customers are already discussing your brand on social media, so you must be ready to respond. You can choose social media platforms to post about your brand and highlight positive things. Also, social media is a great place to address the negative issues related to a brand.

For instance, if people post complaints about your brand, you can reply through social media.

Is someone saying something about your business that is not real?

Is somebody saying something wrong about your business? Make sure you share your story politely and professionally. Is somebody praising your brand? Convey them your thanks.

10. Engaging audiences and customers- Social media networks let you interact with fans and customers directly and offer them the chance to communicate with your brand. Unlike traditional media, which provides one-way communication, social media works two ways.

You must commit yourself if you want followers and customers to be engaged. Stay active on your social media and respond to the questions consumers ask on your social media posts in a way that is right for your brand.

You can even use social media monitoring to track what people are saying about your brand on social media. But, of course, just tweeting is not enough; responding to others and mentioning them also plays an important role.

11. Retargeting- is another on the list of essential benefits of social media marketing. About 70 percent of online shopping carts are left unattended.

Customers who have abandoned products in a shopping cart are potential customers. They have come across your website, browsed your products and services, and might have decided what to buy. Of course, customers abandon shopping carts for several reasons, but you should not ignore somebody who has shown interest in your brand.

Using tracking tools like Facebook Pixel, you can show your potential customers different social media ads for the items they browsed on your site or kept in the shopping cart.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for proving ROI

12. Analytics and Reporting- It is always challenging for marketers to prove Return on Investment. But, with social media analytics and tracking tools, you can observe the full impact of your different social media activities, including total engagements, number of followers, etc.

Tools like Hootsuite Impact and Google Analytics can track website traffic generated from conversions, social media, ROI, and email sign-ups for paid and organic social media campaigns.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for achieving insights

13. Helps you attain market insights- One of the most important benefits of social media marketing is gaining market insights. Is there any way to understand what your customers think or what they require compared to direct communication? No. 

Being active on Social Media Platforms lets you know customers’ opinions and interests that you might not otherwise. It is one of the best research tools for you.

One of the essential social media benefits is that it lets you analyze your customers’ demographics. As a result, you can attain customer insights and market your products and services accordingly.

14. Keep a watch on the competitors– Knowing what others say about your competitors is also significant. For instance, keeping track of the mentions of your competitors might reveal difficulties with their products or services.

Checking the competition on social media also means you will know when your competitors launch new products, run promotions, and release new data or reports.

These were some of the significant benefits of social media marketing for business. As we all know, everything has advantages and disadvantages, so let’s look at the disadvantages of social media marketing.

Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing

1. Negative feedback can tarnish a brand’s reputation- Being on social media signifies exposing your brand publicly to people who may or may not like your brand.

The internet is a medium that can be accessed easily by all types of people, so there is a high chance that somebody can visit your social media page and comment on something terrible about your brand.

If your business is new or gaining popularity, the chances of getting negative comments are probably high.

As it is so easy to engage or comment, anybody can write negative comments about your brand.

2. Less ROI- One of the major disadvantages of social media marketing. Regarding ROI, it is the lowest in social media marketing compared to other online marketing strategies. You must invest effort, time, and money to get good results.

If your brand does not engage with your fans daily, the number of followers will decrease. That is why it is essential to establish a particular awareness and reputation for your brand before starting social media marketing.

3. Limited to a particular group- You cannot target all types of people through social media. It is so because a different set of people use social media. For example, there may be a group of people who do not have a social media presence. Therefore, it is essential to research your target audiences before creating online marketing strategies.

If you are an organization looking to upskill your employees with social media marketing skills, contact us to learn more about corporate training. Get a free demo on how we can help your employees learn more about social media marketing and digital marketing skills.

And if you are a student or somebody who wants to learn Social Media Marketing and attain certification, check out our Social Media course. And you can even learn Programmatic Advertising from us.

We hope you enjoyed this blog. In the comment section, let us know your thoughts on Social Media Marketing.