10 Reasons Why You Need Social Media Marketing For Business?

About 21 years now since social media has been born and a number of corporate giants soar. Business success being explained by exceptional social media marketing. And, where are Zimbabwean businesses? Facebook reports, there are over 1.7 million Facebook accounts in Zimbabwe, almost a million of which are very active – working at least 4 times a month. How do businesses benefit from social media then?

1. Reach Many People In An Instant At A Low Budget | Work Smart

Some pages we manage have had  over one hundred and fifty thousand people viewing a post in less than a week, nearly twenty five thousand profile views, up to one million impressions; all on organic performance not sponsored, which means I would not have paid for advertising.

One promotional message on three hundred thousand eye balls. You can rarely and effectively do that much with fliers, and even if you did, you’d have to pump out about more than US$300 for both printing and distribution. Worst of all, you don’t have a way to track those fliers, plus it causes pollution – litter. All that is different with social media – good news.

2. Be Found Everywhere, Anytime | Be Accessible

One month in 2018, I had up to 60 people reaching out to one of the colleges whose social media pages I manage asking for more details, converting up to 48% of which asked for payment arrangements to the point of paying without having to go to the school premises.

All they had to do was show proof of payment and send their child to school. Now, isn’t that convenience? It is. Imagine how Edgars does it, Alibaba and other bigger organisations, or sponsored pages.

To add, people ask for recommendations on Facebook and LinkedIn. A good number is searching for stuff on social media. Come to think of it, how often do you want something and in good quality but you don’t have time to manually roam around looking and comparing prices?

With social media, you are in business and you are open even at midnight and you are accessible enough for business to people in Malaysia, Honduras, Canada, Iceland, Burma, even North Pole.

3. Provide Customer Service.

Once, in 2018 August, my internet connection wasn’t stable. Frustrated, I  reached out through Twitter to my service provider. In an instant I had my connection better and some things clarified.

Imagine what you could do for your advocate and loyal clients with a proper social media presence. You’ll serve your market, customers and your brand. I love my service provider, to me they’re the best I’ve had in telecommunications, not only because they have a great network and benefits (which they do by the way), but alsbecause I’ve been able to get timely updates from them on my news feed.

I love it because it’s not intrusive at the same time preparing me for whatever trend is expected such as change in tariffs, data connection changes among others – best part, they usually tell when there is enough of time to act on the update. Optimised social media presence can save a brand, even multiply its growth.

With the wake of the disastrous Covid19, this benefit ceases being a luxury but a necessity for all functional and growth-focused businesses.

4. Brand Loyalty

The way I vouch for my network provider, favourite soft drink, favourite magazine and a lot more other things is just phenomenal. I say that because most of the times the people I get to interact with end up doing more than considering these services/products.

They actually buy and because most of the times they find them good, they reach out about it and I reinforce. Most of this has a lot to do with their regular updates on social media. People get to reshare, retweet and related which increases the influence of a company.

5. Educate Your Customers.

A few of years ago, 2017, I bought a pesticide. A few weeks before I used it I stumbled on a couple of videos on YouTube giving precautions – in detail with visual aids. That was great for me, and since then I’m hooked when it comes to that pesticide. In fact, I’ve actually recommended to a number of farmers and, they love it.

A couple of times, people use very little of a product/service. I mean of a given product, an average user (consumer) uses less than 30% of what they could by fully using the product. Ultimately, to that user your product is only as good as many other competitors’. Your product is not unique. It’s easy for a customer to move to another provider in the industry when they want your product.

If that’s the case, how about when there is just but a small glitch in your product? He/she will leave you/drop you if not decampaign you or worse – dragging you through lawsuits. But regular, optimised social media posts can educate them about the product, like DHL does.

6. Add Value To Your Products/Service.

I’ve recently learnt that there are up to 7 clear and great benefits of buying a certain cereal instant porridge – Jungle Oats. I thought, what – we underpay for this. That’s value.

Effective content strategy for social media will cause your doubting Thomases frequenting your shop and you won’t understand. More to that, bringing in loads more people with them. Now that’s proactive aggressive marketing. Social media marketing presents you with an opportunity to add value to your products and service.

7. Generate Leads And Make Your Website Worth It.

Some websites/blogs have been estimated to have a value of over US$50k. That has a lot to do with the huge volumes of traffic they pull, the large sales they make, the kind of engagement they spur and other great metrics considered.

With more than 2.5 billion active social media accounts today, great website performance is owed to great social media performance. There’s not a day that passes without me visiting Entrepreneur Magazine’s website, and that’s from either my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn news feed.

See?

That’s what I mean. Optimised social media marketing is the magic portal for your much needed web traffic, engagement and sales.

8. PR

One week, in March in 2018, the largest and most loved chicken-related fast food businesses, KFC ran out of chicken in Europe. The UK market went mad. That was bad. They ran a campaign on social media, apologising and taking the blame for their supplier. They did it in a humorous, humane, proactive and crafty way that it brought about a record impact and PR for them. I think it’s the best they have had in a decade. Imagine that.

9. Influence.

My post once got lost in the mail in 2015. I didn’t like it, in fact I missed a good deal because of that. I promised myself to never have that again, as long as I can be proactive. Small package delivery of that company wasn’t as reliable.

Surfing on Facebook in 2016, a friend of mine had reshared some quote by DHL Africa. It had some captivating graphics, and some humane and humorous promotion, I had to check it. I loved what I saw, and since then I now see DHL Africa’s posts first on my news feed.

Over time I have learnt how great they are, even supporting the things that I find important to advocate for. Using DHL for me is more like working with family. I think there’s no other business that’s better than them in the industry they are in. Now, that’s leading, that’s influence.

10. Research And Engage.

“Do you know who cries the most on Miss America (well, in our case, Miss Zimbabwe) pageant? You’d think it’s one of the princesses or one of those who get off the group close to the finish, but no. It’s the winner. Why? Because she’ll have to maintain that next time, and it’s hard to maintain first position.” – this is in line with what Harvey Specter once said on Suits, the USA Network legal drama.

And yet, Apple has managed to maintain it in a lot of areas for years now. Social Media.

A number of companies pay millions for research and development (R & D). In fact, the cost of R & D is estimated at over a 100 billion every year. Not only is it costly, it takes a lot of time. With the data gathered companies can innovate with which they can maintain or obtain an industrial icon status.

Social media has cleared off the division line and created the bridge for the firms that can’t afford millions of R & D budgets. With social media research tools and engagement platforms, you can have value data and innovation ideas with a small budget or at no cost in no time. So, you get to maintain your status as an industrial icon. Your lead, you influence other players in the industry.

At the end of the day, you either have a sound social media plan working for your business right now, or you will never ever have it. You know why you’ll never have it? Because with every passing day, it’s increasingly becoming difficult to make maximum impact, and you won’t afford it since you’re missing out on a lot of business you could be getting if you were there. You ever wonder why dinosaurs are extinct but sharks are still around, powerful and famous? Dinosaurs could not adapt to changes that unfolded before them. The business ecosystem and dynamics have changed, even for Zimbabwe – don’t even start with this coronavirus. If you don’t change with them, you might get extinct. Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.

Now all these things may sound really overwhelming for someone who has all these technical and management tasks to do. Great, that’s why we are here. Let us see what we can do about that, ASAP so you can soar above your co-players in the industry. Contact us on influencezw@yahoo.com, +263771043508/+263714194145 or on social – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and grab the 1 week free strategy session, valid until 15 August 2020.