This article is based on the video tutorial published in our YouTube channel Social Media for Business. The objective is to understand the purpose of having a social media presence for business and how businesses can leverage it to their advantage.
In this short video, it briefly explains the main objective of having a social media presence for business which includes the following:
- What Social Media do?
- What types of social communications?
- Which customer segmentation?
- Why social media – Marketing?
- What’s the benefits for the business?
Having a social media presence as a business is like branding your company to the public. There are various social media platforms that are available for any businesses to use e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
Your business account should include brief introduction of your business, company website, contact details and additional information that is relevant. Everything that you published in social media should be related to your business that includes sharing or photos/posts of your products and services, PR – Press Releases, videos or links of your business, products, services etc.
The ideal practice for any business is to be consistent in utilizing the social media platform to keep reaching and engaging to the community. Businesses can use relevant content, most common content is photos together with your posts featuring your products/services, latest promotions or updates about your business. This platform is also used to create brand awareness, in generating leads and useful for customer retention for businesses.
Apart from using it to reach out to the public, businesses can also use it as a platform for a two-way communication between the business and the customers. This is a healthy approach to utilize the platform and gather customer’s feedback and suggestion. It is not only encouraging the customer’s engagement but also ensuring that every customer’s queries are being addressed promptly to express virtual customer service to them.
Businesses should be aware that social media platforms are a two-way communication/dialogue which means that the public have the right to give their reviews and feedbacks on your page, write a public/private query, to like, share and comments on your posts/page.
Utilize social media presence to meet with your business gains and always be mindful that it is about business branding and a business image that you’ve to maintain along with your business social presence.
Businesses can also use social media platform for social media marketing. This is an ideal platform to reach out to the population and generate new leads, by targeting your ideal segmentation and you also can control your expenses for marketing purposes within your budget. This platform also give you the ability to track and monitor your page performance and competitors. This will provide the business with useful insights of their business.
There are several useful features available for business e.g. share an offer to the public, create promotions etc. to promote your products and services and reach out to more people. You can also interact and greet your customers/followers with season’s greetings all in one place.
Apart from posts/photos for the content, videos and links are also popular among business to share with their customers. This is proven to be more engaging and responsive to the audiences in providing them relevant content and additional information. Be consistent and always share your website links and relevant content to boost the outcome.
Benefits to the business eventually are the surge in brand awareness and loyalty, building relationships between business and consumers, better understanding and gaining of customer insights and increase in website traffic, search ranking and ultimately sales.