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Beth Foster

Social Media

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 7 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs a Social Media Strategy

Social media isn’t disappearing anytime soon - in fact, there are now 3.196 billion users on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn worldwide, a number that is growing 13% year over year. Not only does a social media strategy provide your brand with another avenue to reach your customers, but it’s a powerful tool for building lasting relationships with them as well. If you have yet to reach your target market on social media, it’s likely that your competitors already have--more than 50 million small businesses have a presence on social media.

Wondering if it’s still necessary to invest in that social media strategy? We’ve compiled the top 7 reasons why it’s the best decision your small business can make. 

If you are looking for a company to manage your social media marketing or search engine optimization, contact Profitworks today. 

 

1. A Social Media Strategy is the Most Efficient Way to Provide Strong Customer Service

Setting up social media accounts is an extremely efficient way to create a platform to respond to and rectify your customer complaints in a timely manner. According to Social Media Today, 67% of customers now use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok and X to seek resolution from brands when they’ve had a negative experience. Not only does having a presence on social media provide a cost-effective way to handle these complaints, but it also allows you to do it in real-time, reducing the chances of negative information about your brand spreading online. A well-recovered customer may be even more loyal to your brand moving forward than one who has never submitted a complaint!

 

2. A Social Media Strategy Helps You Build Brand Awareness and Reputation

In today’s world, one of the first things a prospective customer does before making a purchase is online research. If your business does not have a social media strategy, you are severely limiting your chances of building brand awareness at this stage of the consumer decision-making process. Having an active social media presence can play a huge role in signalling that your brand is one that’s worth buying from. A social media strategy can help build trust with customers and it offers another opportunity for them to learn about your brand and what it stands for. One effective way to strengthen your social media strategy is through Social Boosting, which can help increase visibility and engagement across key platforms.

 

3. A Social Media Strategy Will Improve Your Website Traffic and Brand Authority on the Web

Having an online community surrounding your brand tells Google that your business is offering something of value, driving up your visibility in search engine results. In addition to the potential for higher ranking on Google, having profiles on websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ presents multiple opportunities for you to rank, not only for your brand name but also for the keywords you’re associated with. Incorporating social media into your overall SEO strategy can be extremely effective in generating new business for your brand - in fact, a strong SEO strategy generates an average of $2.75 in profit for every dollar spent.

 

4. A Social Media Strategy is a Cost-Effective and Efficient Way to Advertise for Your Business

Complicated, cost-intensive advertising campaigns are no longer required to spread the word about your brand. In fact, the cost per 1000 impressions on sites like Facebook or Twitter can be as low as $1, meaning your business can reach large amounts of people with minimal marketing dollars. Although it sounds easy, simply throwing up an ad will not typically result in the conversions or leads you’re looking for - it takes a cleverly crafted strategy developed by professionals to make your ad effective.

 

5. A Social Media Strategy Will Increase Your Conversions

Every social media interaction represents a new touchpoint with current and new customers, providing countless opportunities to meet their needs with your product or service. For example, if you share a link to a newly-released product on your brand’s Facebook page, every click represents a new opportunity for a follower to click on your content and decide to buy. With multiple posts to social media a week, you are increasing your sales initiatives dramatically with minimal heavy lifting. In addition to the content you share, the engagement you get from followers can mean more conversions for your brand as well. Using social media as a way to communicate with people who are interested in buying from your brand is a simple way to answer their questions and incentivize them to buy.

 

6. A Social Media Strategy Generates Digital Word of Mouth

Few things are better for your brand than word of mouth, and with social media, spreading the word has never been easier for customers. With every positive review shared online, your customers are introducing your brand to their own networks, vastly increasing the number of people that your brand could reach on its own. Social media broadens your target market far beyond your current geographic constraints, allowing you to tap into a larger community with every follow, like, or share. Positive digital word of mouth is one of the most efficient ways to get strong customer referrals!

 

7. A Social Media Strategy Helps You Improve Customer Retention

One of the most notable benefits of a social media strategy is its ability to help your brand retain and delight customers. Once customers have purchased one of your products or services, social media makes it easy for your customers to stay engaged. Every post your business makes on social media keeps your brand top-of-mind for customers, reminding them of the positive experience they had following their last purchase. This increases the likelihood of further purchases in the future, building loyalty towards your brand.

 

 

Starting From Scratch? Grow a Following in Days With This Easy Tip:

Now that you recognize the benefit of establishing a social media strategy, you may be wondering where to begin. Growing a loyal following on social can take time, but there are tactics you can use to jumpstart organic growth right away!

When launching your social media strategy, trying developing your follower base by running a social media giveaway. Whether it’s a gift card to your online shop or a coupon for a free service, offering a giveaway is a simple way to encourage customers to follow your brand and have them spread the word by tagging friends.

Beauty giant Benefit Cosmetics provides an excellent example of this at work. In order to encourage the growth of their Canadian Instagram account, Benefit ran a giveaway allowing followers to enter to win a year’s supply of products by tagging their friends or commenting on the original post. Not only does this encourage new people to follow the account, but it also increases the post's popularity in Instagram’s search feed, boosting Benefit’s visibility on the platform overall.

 

Social Media Strategy: the Future of Small Business Marketing

Finally convinced that it’s time to invest in a social media strategy? Profitworks can help! Let us develop your custom social media strategy while you focus on growing your small business. Not only will we help you reach, engage, and retain your current customers, but we’ll craft a strategy that will help you tap into markets you’ve never reached before. Contact us today!

"Our overall sales to new customers has improved as a result of detailed analysis, proposed solutions and successful execution." -Tom (Business Owner & Customer)

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Julie Baxter

Social Media

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Social Media Marketing - What is all the Buzz About?

 

Social media marketing is a trend in businesses today. But what is all the buzz about? Does social media marketing help increase conversions? Does it help you meet your marketing goals? How many people are on social media networks? Is it better to invest in social media marketing or search engine optimization (SEO)? This guide will answer all of those questions and more. If you are looking for a company to manage your social media marketing or search engine optimization, contact Profitworks today.

 

 

Social Media Marketing 101: What Is It?

Social media marketing is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and other content that drives audience engagement. 

 

How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Meet Your Marketing Goals

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as:

• Increasing website traffic
• Building conversions
• Raising brand awareness
• Creating a brand identity 
• Improving communication and interaction with audiences

How Does SEO Differ From Social Media Marketing?

Profitworks has worked with a wide range of clients from many different industries over the years. We have found that the ROI (return on investment) of SEO will typically be between +200% to +275%. The social media services for those same clients typically generate at -90% ROI, meaning that the customer does not make back what they spent on social media marketing, let alone make a profit. For some businesses, it makes sense to combine social media marketing with SEO. Still, if you only have enough to spend on one, we would recommend SEO because it always pays out better. 

Note: Profitworks typically works with Business to Business clients. Business to Consumer models may have slightly higher social media ROI.

Why Is It Effective?

1. Your customers are on social media - your customers are using these channels daily. 

 

 

2. Consumers will be more receptive to your messages when marketing through social media - because social media is fun and easy, people trust them without feeling marketed to.

3. Marketing through social media can help increase brand recognition - your business social media profiles present new opportunities to share your content and really present your brand’s voice and personality through compelling content. 

4. Marketing through social media increases your inbound traffic - your social media profiles provide another way to get more inbound traffic to your website. 

 

5. Different social media channels help you reach specific audiences - another benefit of social media marketing is that you are able to strategically target different audiences based on the channels that your brand is active on. 

 

 

 

6. Social media advertising allows you to target and retarget ideal consumers - with sophisticated targeting capabilities, social media platforms like Facebook help you target your ideal buyers, which allows you to drive more relevant traffic to your site. 

7. Marketing through social media is cost-effective - one of the greatest benefits of marketing through social media is that it helps you cut marketing costs without sacrificing results.

8. Search engines pay attention to your social media behaviour, especially links to social content and social signals like likes and shares - not only could your social media presence impact your search engine rankings, but it’s important to note that your social media profiles will most likely show up on the first page of Google when consumers are looking for your brand. 

 

 

9. Your competition is on social media - no matter what industry you are in or who your target market is, there is a good chance that your competitors are already present and involved on social media channels.

10. Marketing on social media leads to higher conversion rates - according to HubSpot, social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing tactics. 

11. Social media marketing helps improve brand loyalty - while larger companies can afford to build big and expensive customer loyalty programs, small businesses are able to rely on other, more affordable methods for building brand loyalty, like social media.

12. Consumers are looking for recommendations on social media - word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful tools that any company has in their marketing toolbox. 

 

 

 

13. Social media helps connect your brand with customers you didn’t know existed - marketing through social media can be an excellent outlet for bringing in new consumers. 

14. Marketing through social media can help you improve brand authority - marketing through social media helps you build authority for your brand. 

 

 

 

15. Social media marketing gives you the opportunity to gain new customer insights - by interacting with leads and current customers on social media, you are able to see what your customers are interested in and what drives them.

 

Social Media Statistics 

1. The average internet user has 7.6 social media accounts.
2. Between Q2 and Q3 of 2017, the number of social media users skyrocketed by 121 million.
3. Mature users aged 55-64 are more than twice as likely to interact with branded content than their younger social media-consuming counterparts.
4. 96 percent of social media users that talk about a brand online don’t even follow the brand’s profile.
5. Today, more than 3.2 billion images will be shared on social media posts.
6. 49 percent of social media users share product information with the hopes of improving the lives of others.
7. We spend a lifetime average of 5 years and 3 months on social media.

 

How To Be Effective In Social Media Management 

Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your business’ goals. Starting a social media marketing campaign without a strategy is pointless. 

Here are some questions to ask when defining your social media marketing goals:

• What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing?
• Who is your target audience?
• Where would your target audience hang out and how would they use social media?
• What message do you want to send to your audience with social media marketing?

 

Best Social Media Marketing Tips

Ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few social media marketing tips.

• Social Media Content Planning — As discussed previously, building a social media marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and competition research to help brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. What are other businesses in your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?
• Great Social Content — Consistent with other areas of online marketing, content is most important when it comes to social media marketing. Make sure you post regularly and offer truly valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting.

 

 

Trust Profitworks With Your Social Media Marketing Needs

 

"Instead of paying per click, they have rebuilt our content to
organically rise to the top of the search page"

Tim - Business Owner & Customer
Read More Testimonials!

 

Profitworks Small Business Services provides website traffic and website conversion optimization services which increase the number of sales generated from a website. The focus of our services is increasing sales and providing a positive return on investment. To learn more about Profitworks, click here. Feel free to connect with us on Google+, or if you are just interested in getting new customers for your businesses, feel free to click the "Let's Discuss" button below.

 

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Social Media

Hits: 15767

Social Media Marketing Services-The Top 7 Reasons Why to Spend That Money on Local SEO Services Instead 

In this blog article and podcast, we are going to talk about social media marketing services versus SEO marketing services. The primary goal of this content is to explain the top reasons to spend a marketing budget on SEO instead of social media. 

 

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Chris R. Keller

Social Media

Hits: 47663

• SEO
• ROI
• Search Engine Optimization,
• Organic Traffic
• SEO Roi
• social media ROI
• Social Media Traffic
• podcast

ROI Of Organic SEO Traffic +275% vs Social Media Traffic -90%

In this podcast we compare the return on investment of organic traffic (which is generated by search engine optimization) and social media traffic (which is generated by social media activities or social media advertising). From our research one appears to have a great return on investment for businesses and the other is terrible. This is extremely surprising given both seem to be all the hype in the last few years in the small business community, on blogs and from marketing speakers. A large portion of businesses are being misguided, wasting a lot of money, time, and energy that is not benefiting their business.

If you would like an audit of your search engine optimization and social media activities, contact us to book an appointment to discuss. If you are not familiar with any of the terms referenced in this article, scroll down to the bottom of the article where you can find detailed descriptions explaining each term. 

 

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