Guest Article by Ann Jarema For more content from Ann, find her on The Smarketer Blog Site
If your business is not yet leveraging a social media marketing strategy, you are missing out. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, all provide a unique opportunity for you to interact with and create relationships with, your customers. There are over 3.2 billion active users on social media today - that’s well over 40% of the world population. Aside from the vast majority of adults and teens being active on social media, the average user spends over two hours, each day, engaging with social media content. This provides an exceptional opportunity to build relationships with both your existing and prospective customers. Why you need to get on social media - now!

• Social media allows you to build brand awareness. If a customer doesn’t know about you, it’s pretty likely that they won’t do business with you. Pretty obvious, right? But not only that, audiences are seeking information for brands that can help solve their problems or fulfill a need in their life. If they can’t find you, they’ll either go on living with that problem or void, or they’ll make their way to your competition.
• Social media is exceptionally cost-effective. It doesn’t cost anything to create a profile. And, one of the best ways to engage customers is to share content from your website, on your social media profiles. This means that every time you post a blog on your website or share about an event your company sponsored, or any time you announce a new product release, that content should get out on your social channels. When you do this, especially when that content is rich with applicable keywords, more and more customers start to find you, and learn about what you can do to make their life better. While paid social advertising serves an important purpose, and is definitely an activity you should investigate to truly maximize your social media strategy, it will cost you nothing to get started
• When you actively engage with your customers online, by default, you start to build loyalty. Taking the time to share relevant and engaging content that sets you apart as a thought leader, will help customers see that you are an expert in your field. Customers want to know that they are doing business with companies that know what they are doing, and have the experience that they desire. Social media provides you with a platform to communicate with your customers. When customers comment on your articles, you can see what they like (and what they don’t). If they post that they are dissatisfied with something about your company, you can respond, apologize if appropriate, and take that feedback as a way to make your business better. And people like to see companies that respond to their posts. They like to be heard.
• When customers feel heard, and when they learn from you, they are more likely to become loyal customers down the road. If they are ignored, or if they never hear from you, they’ll turn elsewhere. Because for sure, your competition is already present on social media and sharing content, or they will be soon.
• The more customers visit your website (increased traffic), driven there by engaging content on social media, you also start to experience enhanced SEO rankings. It isn’t enough just to optimize your website and update your blog on occasion. Businesses that share their content on social media are sending out a clear brand signal that says look at us. This, in turn, works as a signal to the search engine that speaks to your brand validity, honesty, and consistency.
  

Today’s consumers are very internet-savvy, and they know how to find what they are looking for. Tied to that, social media is flourishing in reach and impact. It is believed that over half of social browsers use social media to study and explore products and to inform their buying decisions. More buyers are joining social media networks with the primary intention of seeking reviews and recommendations, and this trend is expected to continue for some time. For all these reasons, it is essential to have an online presence on social media platforms - in the least, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for B2C marketers, and LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for B2B marketers. The key is to find out which social media platform your target market is using most often and ensure your content is where they are when they are there.