For a large part of the population, one of the first things they do when they wake up is check their phone.
In fact, over 75% of people on waking up reach for their phone and check their social media accounts, and by the end of 2018 the average time spent on social media in a day was over 135 minutes! As a business owner these numbers are monumental and an important factor when it comes to understanding why you need to use social media.
In Australia, Facebook alone has an average monthly active user count of 15 million people, YouTube has a similar count with Instagram running third with 9 million and LinkedIn at 4.5 million. With that many people using these platforms you can be guaranteed your target market is on social media. Gone are the days of only using traditional offline methods of marketing, if you want to move to the next level you need to use a mix of marketing methods and get on board with social media.
Out of those 15 million Australians on Facebook, how many do you think could be interested in what you are selling? We’re going to bet quite a few, this makes social media platforms the perfect place to engage with your target market. By engaging with your audience, you have a unique opportunity to be able to understand their wants and needs further. This engagement allows you to really build a relationship with your followers. The more they get to know you and your brand the more invested they will become with you as a business.
And all that engagement makes social media is a one stop hub for customer insights. Being able to find your target audience is one of the greatest things about social media. Most platforms have an Insights or Analytics area which will give you detailed insights into who is following you. You can leverage this information to find out who else might be interested in your business, get know to them and turn them into prospective clients.
Additionally, if you want an opportunity to excel in customer service, social media provides the platform. Customers are able to reach businesses in a multitude of ways on social media platforms and having someone dedicated to managing this interaction allows your level of customer service to be taken up a notch. Customer queries can be dealt with swiftly and you are given the opportunity to speak directly to the customer when it suits them, rather than answer their questions through say email.
As opposed to some traditional methods of marketing, social media is a mostly level playing field for all businesses no matter your budget, location or industry. We say mostly level because although the platforms are free to use for everyone and every business has the same starting point and opportunity to post content, the platforms are increasingly becoming a space where it is ‘pay to play’.
Ultimately, the main purpose of social media for businesses is to build brand awareness and generate leads. Social media provides a significant opportunity to get eyes on your brand that you never thought possible and never really had access to. With so many Australian’s (and over 2 billion Facebook users worldwide) why wouldn’t you want to tap into a medium such as social media?
About the Author
Jessica is a digital marketer specialising in social media marketing and helping businesses navigate the social media landscape to achieve their marketing and communication objectives. She spent seven years in marketing before deciding to specialise in digital and social mediamarketing and then starting her own company Catalyst Marketing Solutions in 2015. Catalyst Marketing Solutions’ purpose is to help businesses achieve their marketing and communication objectives through the use of social media platforms. Jessica is excited to now be working with Max My Profit as their Digital Excelerator to provide tailored social media marketing services to their clients.
