Why should my organisation be on social media?

Social media is a cost-effective way to build your brand reputation and increase visibility by connecting with existing and potential customers. It is a place to share valuable information and influence your audience. It has the benefit of enabling you to reach a huge audience which is targeted by interest. Once you have their interest you can then drive them to your website to learn more. Most customers will ‘check out’ a business on social media before they contact them directly.

Social media is a great way to reassure people and get them talking…

• 71% of people who have a good experience will recommend to others on social media (Source: Nielsen).
• 92% of people trust recommendations from an individual rather than an organisation (Source: Forrester).

And the beauty of digital marketing on social media is that you can measure the results, understand what people are looking for and how they browse your information, all at a relatively low cost compared to other advertising methods.

There are of course some downsides to be aware of too… People tend to post negative as well as positive feedback, and if you’re not careful with your content you can end up in some embarrassing situations. A tarnished reputation on social media can be very hard to repair.

It takes time

It is important to note that social media will not increase sales overnight but exists to help you form a relationship with your ‘ideal clients’ so that you are at the forefront of their minds when they may need your products or services.

It requires resources

Most people don’t realise how time-consuming managing their social media can be. You will need to research and write content, find appropriate images, links, videos, industry news as well as scheduling the content, engaging with your followers and analysing your results to ensure you are maximising your brand presence. Make sure it is relevant to the target audience and a clear strategy is in place rather than a scattergun approach to ensure your marketing message is consistent.

If you’re going to promote your business on social media, then you need to do it properly so that you look professional, otherwise don’t take the risk.

FACEBOOK
With more than 1 billion daily active users, Facebook continues to be the most popular social platform both among consumers and marketers according to the Sprout Social 2019 index. Your Facebook page can be used to gain ‘followers’ – people that choose to like/follow/share the page, thus spreading the word to a larger audience. Imagine if 100 people on Facebook share a post to their network of say 300 people? That’s a reach of 30,000 people, for FREE!

• 83% of surveyed consumers use the platform
• 66% like or follow a brand
• 89% of marketers use the platform in their brand marketing efforts.

LINKEDIN
LinkedIn is an ideal platform for B2B engagement, and the platform has over 690 million registered users with 30 million companies using the platform to raise their profile.

• Four out of five people on LinkedIn ‘drive business decisions’
• 80% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation (Source: Hootsuite).
• Target by company size, industry, job title, seniority

TWITTER
Get instant access to conversations about your industry sector, your business, and start interacting with them immediately to gain followers and attract new ones. Twitter is very commonly used to provide customer support where immediate.

• 75% of companies with an online presence use Twitter
• 13.7m Twitter users in the UK (330m worldwide according to Twitter 2019))
• 38% are aged between 18-29, 26% are 30-49 (Thevab 2018)
• 66% are male (Datareportal 2019)