Social media is quickly becoming a necessity for businesses of all sizes. With so many options for social media integration, choosing which platforms are most effective for your business can be a daunting task.
Because of this, social media integration is often brushed over without considering the benefits that it can actually create for your business.
With this in mind, here are a few ways that your business can benefit from social media integration.
Reach
In 2014 over 13 million Australians were connected to Facebook, 2 million to twitter and 2.2 million to LinkedIn. With a market of this size, your business scope is limitless and reaching demographics that were previously unreachable becomes as simple as the click of a button.
Sponsored advertisements and suggested pages on Facebook also create; free-to-low cost awareness of your brand to like-minded consumers.
Engagement
Research shows that 83% of Facebook users will browse company pages for research of products and services. This engagement also leads to reading reviews, discussions, comments and eventually posting or adding their own comments. 40% of the time consumer product research leads to a purchase across all industry sectors.
Involvement
A major benefit of social media integration is creating an avenue for two-way communication between business and client. Two-way communication not only provides your business with useful feedback in order to improve, but it also creates an open relationship between you and your clients.
It is also very important for you to consider sharing industry articles and openly participating in relevant discussions. This generates a professional image among peers and also reciprocates to your own content being shared and discussed.
Value
Using social media platforms as a means to add value to both your brand and content comes in handy. High quality content that is shared via social media will deliver a credible image of your brand and ultimately add value to your products/services. Platforms such as LinkedIn provide a useful tool for business-to-business (B2B) growth within your industry. LinkedIn allows users to network with like-minded individuals and participate on industry discussion boards.
With business social media involvement only growing, it will be interesting to see which platforms will become the most relevant for business integration and growth. The most prominent platforms for businesses, being Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all provide their own unique features.
Facebook is great for delivering a specific brand image and providing an avenue for two-way communication between clients, whilst Twitter and LinkedIn offer a greater B2B experience for both open discussion and industry networking, respectively.
