Adjaou Mohamed Adesola, MSc Digital Marketing student
Today, harnessing the power of social media is a must, if you want to expand your business. It is by no surprise that engaging with your followers on social media is essential to your business success. By paying attention to what is being shared offers modern businesses with a plethora of market research data. According to We Are Social, the number of internet and social media users stands at 4.021 billion and 3.196 million respectively, a number which represents a 13% increase yearly.
While the opportunities to capitalize on social media remains abundant, the true success comes from meeting the consumers’ expectations and moving beyond mere participation.
In order to leverage the power of social media to meet consumer’s expectation, a business needs a strong social program and a sturdy foundation to build upon. Thus, it is critical for businesses to first consider their brand positioning.
Brand position refers to how you make prospective consumers make sense of your business. When you position your firm, you begin to stand for something-something, which is unique and useful. So how do you position yourself?
- Through Research: Before you craft any marketing plan, you need to understand the market in which your business operates. How do your clients perceive you? Who are you competitors? What opportunities exist in the market? All these allow you to distinguish yourself from other.
- Specialization: After research, analyze the data and understand your strengths and weaknesses. Is there something your firm can offer better than others? Specialization can help you gain more margins and develop a loyal clientele base.
- Differentiation: You can set yourself apart through proprietary process or tools. Often, a client will be loyal to a businesses that satisfy their needs. It begins by offering good customer care and responding to customer inquiries. Besides, having a presence online gives you a mileage above others.
Discussed below are some of the most important social media platforms and how businesses can use them to target customer needs.
With over 2 billion users monthly, Facebook provides businesses with matchless opportunity to reach virtually anyone anywhere. Data from Pew Research Center indicates that women tend to use Facebook more often than men, while the core age is 18-29 years. Facebook is ideal for all marketing your business marketing needs. Additionally, video or image marketing attracts more viewership than generic text.
Additionally, it is not just enough to have a Facebook account or page. Having an account is a hotbed for users to voice an issue or problem. According to Conversocial, 88% of customers are unlikely to make a purchase from a company that leaves questions on social media unanswered. As a business, therefore, consider this: According to Edison Research, 47% of those surveyed said that Facebook, out of all other social networks had the greatest impact on their purchase behavior. Despite the merits, Facebook is prone to easy duplication, since your competitor can pause as fans to gain access to your content, and your photos may end up in other places you have not approved.
The rise of video Live has been around for a while. Nonetheless, its popularity across Facebook has made it a critical opportunity for marketers in 2019. The interactivity of Facebook Live Video makes it easy for brands to engage with their audience and strengthen the relationship between the brands and its followers. In addition, the authenticity of Live Video helps build trust and loyalty with a brand. Although beneficial, there are certain risks technical complexities that you have to deal with as firm. Today, every firm should move from text first approach to a visual first approach since it creates long lasting impression and effect on consumers.
In addition, today Facebook uses augmented reality for messenger. Thus, firms can now integrate AR into their Messenger experience, besides, they can use integrate chat bots on Messenger app to help handle client queries in real time. The main merit of using AR is the inspiration purchasing decision, which are intertwined. Hence clients don’t have to travel to your brick and mortar office, but rather open their cameras and try the product while on the go.
Currently, Instagram boast of over 500 million monthly active subscribers. Besides, it commands one of the peak audience engagement rates. Despite the good stats, it is not ideal for every industry. Instagram is ideal for fashion, beauty and travel or businesses that offer visual products. In order to get engage your customer you must have clear and appealing pictures, although it is prone to loss of copyright ownership.
Today, businesses can enjoy the use of Instagram story shopping. This feature helps clients create mental perception about a product, thus, making it easy for purchase decision making. Most businesses face challenges of parody accounts when it comes to Instagram marketing. The future of Instagram lies on stories.
With over 328 million active users monthly, Twitter has revolutionized the world of breaking news. Besides, it offers unparalleled access for users to connect with both mainstream and niche brand influencers. Additionally, Twitter itself says that 80% of their users are millennia’s. It is a leading platform for Newspapers and Newsrooms to engage with their audience. Nonetheless, to get much out of Twitter the speed of your response and how you engage with your consumers is essential. Although effective, Twitter does not have an edit button, hence, it requires one to be very keen when posting information on the platform. Moving forward, Twitter has announced they are working on an edit button, which will make work much easier. Twitter requires good timing and when this is missed your tweet will not have an impact.
Conclusion
For businesses, creating and utilizing social media helps empower your brand to gain visibility. Social media provides a platform to engage with your clients. Besides, it is an effective way increase your sales through meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations. Nonetheless, pairing human mastery with the right social media tool is ideal for gaining success and meeting consumers’ needs.
Twitter: @AdjaouMohamed
LinkedIn: https://t.co/rAg1jZKEzi