Briefly, Three Great Reasons Your Business Should Participate in Social Media
We have some clients that participate a lot on social media. We also have some that participate little to none. We often are asked the question “Why should we participate in social media?” There is a long response of course. Many great and in-depth articles and books are written on the subject. We strongly encourage our clients to do this research, get knowledgeable, and most important, get started. Sometimes however there needs to be a brief convincing to get started. We have collected our best most convincing responses and whittled them down to these three great reasons your business should participate in social media.
Here you go and as they relate to the buyer’s journey (Awareness – Consideration – Decision):
1) It Raises Awareness of What You Do – Awareness/Consideration
What value do you provide to your customer? What problem do you solve for them? What pain do you reduce or make go away?
When you share your company’s story on Facebook, tweet/retweet educational information or share one of your company’s milestones on LinkedIN, you are building a professional brand and providing content to promote early engagement.
Recent data (according to HubSpot) revealed that 40% of salespeople have closed between two to five deals because of or directly related to social media. When a prospect in the awareness or consideration stages of the buyer’s journey Googles their problem and finds that your company has written a blog post that directly speaks to their points of pain – you have already started to educate them and help them proceed to the next step in the buyer’s journey.
2) Great for Networking – Consideration
You can use social media to engage with prospects without being pushy by commenting/liking/sharing their posts and content and responding the same way when they reciprocate (i.e., if someone likes an article you created the correct response is to mention them in your reply and thank them for the interaction – don’t message them and ask if they want to schedule a presentation).
Also use social media to reach out to industry SMEs (subject matter experts), prospects and peers by sharing and leaving comments on their content – contribute to the conversation so that you begin to stand out as a contributor in your industry.
3) Enhances Building Your Brand – Consideration/Decision
Networking has helped you establish a schedule for regular interactions with peers and prospects. Take it to the next level and brand yourself as an expert in your industry. Thought leadership and authorship lets everyone know you are actively engaged in advancing your company as the place to go to solve problems.
Regularly creating and sharing content, commenting on news relevant to your industry and interacting with peers and prospects help users review and decide which company possesses the knowledge and capability to provide the solution they need.
So, there you have it. Three great reasons your business should participate in social media. There are lots more. We hope this gives you a little nudge to learn more. Don’t be afraid to get started, even with one platform. Don’t try to boil the ocean all at once. Get started.
Which ones? In our next blog entry we’ll provide a brief list of which social media platforms are the best by needs.
KDROM Enterprises can help you decide which platforms to use, build a program to provide regular updates, and has programs to build and maintain social media accounts on your behalf. Feel free to contact us if interested.
