I still get this question frequently. If a business didn’t get the engagement, leads or sales they expected from a social media post or a Facebook Ad, they say it just didn’t work. So let’s get serious and talk about the why behind social media.

Let’s start with some stats. This is 2019: 71 percent of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand to others if they’ve had a positive experience with the brand on social media. Of those helped on social media, 70 percent will return as customers. That’s huge. In the United States, 68 percent of adults have a Facebook account: 48 percent of baby boomers, 77 percent of Gen X and 90 percent of millennials are online. It’s prevalent; people are online somewhere.

The average user spends about 2.5 hours online per day, which includes messaging (are your ads showing up on Messenger? Because they should). Efforts to implement social media strategy are said to have been effective by 73 percent of online marketers. Those are the black and white stats.

So now let’s talk about how social media really applies to you and your business and why it’s so critical.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the best things you can do. Facebook Ads has some of the best targeted reach and comes in lower than anything else you do. Whether you’re advertising on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Google, those ads work.

Brand awareness & loyalty

We’ll hear a lot, “We didn’t sell anything on our social media pages.” OK, maybe you didn’t make a direct sale, but I can trace back a lot of our customers and a lot of our customers’ customers to interactions that were generated on social media. Especially for folks under 30, by the time they’ve talked to you, they’ve already checked out all of your stuff: your website, your LinkedIn account, your Facebook page. Once they know you and your brand, they’re more likely to come back to you. It’s that know, like, trust factor.

Redirect customers

Social media also helps create inbound traffic by sending people back to your website. If you have a blog, just sharing that content on Facebook increases your odds of being seen by ten. Otherwise, how are people getting to you? If you’re spending all this time creating content for your blog or your website, how is it getting in front of your best end user if you don’t share it online?

SEO

For those who don’t know, search engine optimization is basically how Google finds you. Social media really helps your rank on Google searches. Most of the time your social media accounts are in the top ten results when someone looks for you or your business online. That counts. And Google isn’t the only search engine in town anymore. YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook – these are all considered to be their own unique search engines now, and you find different information when you search on each of those platforms.

Conversion rates

The evidence doesn’t lie: third-party endorsement totally works. There’s a psychology behind it. If I’m engaging with an end user and I tell them our services are awesome… OK, so? But if I’m engaging with an end user and I tell them about another local business’s awesome services, that holds more weight. When your customers are giving you awesome testimonials and you put those on your Facebook, your Twitter, your Pinterest, it is powerful. People check reviews. It matters.

Build community

Social media helps you grow your tribe and build relationships. You can monitor what your customers are saying about you online and keep them satisfied with easy communication. It’s hard to generate the ROI of a relationship. Gary Vaynerchuk says all the time, “What’s the ROI of your mom?” Some of that stuff can’t be measured, but great relationships have value.

So how do I make this a reality?

In order to have a strong social media presence, you’ve got to have a great strategy. You need great content. You have to be consistent, and you have to respond to inquiries regularly.

That can get overwhelming – you can do anything, but you can’t do everything. That’s when my team jumps into action. We are here to help you though consulting, training and managing.

When we do consultations, we sit down and audit your social media presence. I can tell you what is working, I can tell you what’s not working, and you can walk away from that session having a very effective list of actions.

We have an entire series of live training that are happening right now, and you can find any of our events listed on our Facebook page. Next quarter we’re offering live courses on Facebook 101, Facebook Ads and blogging. If you can’t attend live, I’m turning these into webinars as well. Training is available at your fingertips.

If managing social media is overwhelming for you, we can do it. That’s what we’re here for. We’re happy to post on your Instagram or take care of your Facebook posting. So if you want help or if you just have questions, again, that’s what we’re here for. Let us know what we can do to make your life a little easier.