Do you know? Almost 5.3 billion people use the internet worldwide. Among them, almost 4.95 billion people are active users of social media, and 60% of them spend a portion of their time on social media platforms. If businesses are not taking advantage of social media, they’re missing out on big opportunities.
In fact, social media is a marketing tool that has revolutionized the way businesses connect with their target audience. It has become an indispensable tool for marketers seeking to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and drive sales. According to PR Newswire, 90% of local businesses use social media as part of their marketing strategy, while 78% of them rely on social media to drive revenue. Therefore, ignoring marketing on social media means neglecting a significant portion of your potential market.
In this article, we will explain the importance of social media in marketing, its main advantages, effective usage in business marketing, and why you should consider social media a priority in your marketing strategy.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is a marketing method utilizing social media apps, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, and many more. These platforms have a great potential audience. Businesses can engage consumers, disseminate information, and build brand equity utilizing these platforms. The global social media advertising market is expected to grow from $228 bn to $256.5 bn in 2025. It serves to promote sales and web traffic and generate meaningful interaction opportunities with the audience. In addition to reaching new customers, it allows businesses to maintain contact with their audience and provides built-in analytics to evaluate performance and improve marketing strategies.
The real power of social media in business is that it can improve three key areas of marketing: connection, interaction, and customer insights. Companies use them to create better customer relationships, enhance customer experiences, and unlock growth opportunities.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a strong digital tool that helps businesses reach the right audience. It changes how businesses develop and compete in the current world, whether in increasing brand awareness or generating more sales. Let’s learn the key benefits of social media marketing for businesses.
1. Building Brand Awareness and Reputation
Social media is an effective brand visibility tool. For small and growing businesses, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X offer easy access to a wider audience. Through relevant and captivating content, businesses can build their online presence and enhance awareness among prospective clients.
Moreover, social media is also useful in managing reputation, other than visibility. Active monitoring and responding to customers’ feedback help address their concerns and allow you to respond accordingly. It results in creating trust, loyalty, and long-term relationships with customers.
2. Strengthening Customer Trust and Loyalty
Customers can reach out directly through social media. Companies that act on posts, texts, and mentions create a community and establish an important rapport with clients. Such interactions result in customer satisfaction, growth, loyalty, and advocacy.
Furthermore, social media provides important feedback on how your customers behave, and you can examine the likes, shares, comments, and clicks. This data provides more insight into your target market and will be utilized in planning marketing strategies and producing more compelling content.
3. Driving Traffic and Conversions
Online stores and websites can be well promoted through social media marketing. Therefore, companies encourage users to browse and shop to increase their conversions by posting relatable, informative content. This not only increases site traffic but may also lead to higher revenue generation.
Moreover, social media marketing through paid campaigns enables companies to get an organic audience. Social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have sophisticated targeting functionalities that help in targeting specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to optimize conversions.
4. Maximizing Engagement With User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is a useful aspect of social media marketing for businesses. They can leverage the power of social proof by motivating customers to leave their reviews and create content about the brand. UGC is more persuasive, increases trust, and reaches more new audiences than traditional advertising.
Moreover, collaborations with influencers whose content fits the brand niche and has high levels of activity can provide the key to successful conversion, compared to influencers with bigger audiences but less local activity.
5. Expanding Reach with Targeted Ads
Targeted ads are one of the most important features of social media marketing for businesses. However, social media platforms offer these features, such as Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, Snapchat Ads, and LinkedIn Ads that allow businesses to reach their targeted audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviour.
In addition, companies can run various types of advertisements like display ads, story ads, and video ads on social media platform to capture the attention. Not only do these ads have a larger reach, but they also maximize the conversions and provide the right audience at the right time.
How Businesses Use Social Media for Marketing
The 70-20-10 rule is one of the most effective rules businesses pursue in their social media marketing. The approach will guarantee a healthy content mix that keeps audiences’ attention, creates trust, and generates conversions:
1. 70% Value-Driven Content
Focus on helpful, informative, and engaging content, such as blogs, tips, and industry insights that deliver real value to your audience.
2. 20% Shared Content
Share posts of industry experts, partners, or even your customers to gain credibility and connections.
3. 10% Promotional Content
Direct promotions should be minimal to advertise your products, offers, or services without overwhelming your followers.
This ratio will make your social media look natural and not sales-driven. Now, let’s explore the key ways companies turn their social media efforts into real business results.
Key Ways Businesses Leverage Social Media
Social media platforms are not only about visibility but also serve several business objectives when utilized strategically. To establish trust and generate sales, here are five useful ways that companies use social media.
1. Brand Awareness
Social media helps companies generate brand awareness and reach more people. Regular updates, originality, and realism of the message make your brand memorable and familiar even in competitive markets.
2. Customer Engagement
These platforms are not only about posting, but they are also about having conversations. Responding to comments, conducting polls, and developing interactive content reinforces the relationship and loyalty and helps customers feel appreciated.
3. Lead Generation
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other social media apps enable businesses to conduct targeted ad campaigns. These campaigns target the right audience, and the firms get quality leads, which can eventually be transformed into customers.
4. Market Insights
Social media is a treasure trove of data. Keeping up with trends, examining feedback, and monitoring audience activity, discover growth opportunities and improve products, services, or marketing strategies.
5. Sales Growth
Digital platforms have a direct impact on sales with features such as social storefronts, shoppable posts, and retargeting ads. Companies can direct followers through awareness to buy on the same platform, triggering a quantifiable increase in revenue.
Prioritize Your Social Media Strategy Today
Social media has emerged as one of the strongest tools that businesses use to target their audience and drive growth. In planning a social media strategy, it is necessary to make sure that each post, campaign, and interaction has the potential to create awareness, engage customers, or generate leads.
Are you looking to create a social media marketing strategy that truly delivers results? Social media can become a real engine for your business growth with the right knowledge and approach. In Sumato Solutions, our experts develop effective campaigns, produce dynamic content, and leverage analytics to influence quantifiable outcomes. Through social media marketing, we help businesses enhance customer relationships, improve conversion, and achieve long-term success.
