5 Reasons Social Needs to be Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Social media helps you engage with current customers, reach new ones, and distribute the content you worked so hard to create.

Many digital marketers neglect social media in favor of the tactics that they feel drive sales or opportunities the quickest, such as branded paid search efforts or leveraging a direct sales team. In this day and age, going with the fastest path to results alone isn’t the smartest strategy. Consumers are smart and want to feel like they can trust the brands that they work with and building that trust takes time.

1. Be Where Your Customers Are

You’re not going to find every customer on every channel, but with an average of 2.32 billion active users on Facebook each month, it sure is a good place to start. Humans are social and over the last two decades, we’ve evolved to take that social interaction online. People expect to be able to find companies on social channels, to be able to interact with their content and to get a response if submitting a request or issue. If you’re not there when potential customers search for you, your competitors definitely will be.

2. Build Trust Through Honest Communications

We all hate being lied to. We hate feeling like a brand has tried to deceive us. That’s why it’s becoming even more important that brands leverage communication channels, to be honest and direct with consumers. If a mistake was made or there is a big change happening at your company, leverage your social media channels to communicate that story.

3. Social is Dynamic

The platforms evolve on a near daily basis and the algorithms that determine which content to serve to users are constantly learning. Staying on top of the latest trends on the networks and within your industry will help you to serve relevant content.

4. Social Channels Can (and Should) Be Creative & Fun

While other channels tend to be more conservative or need to be more direct, any content that’s distributed through social networks should be creative! If your brand voice leans towards the serious side, you can still be creative about how you express that and what is shared through social. Your message should always be authentic and true to the company or brand that you’re representing.

5. Highly Targeted Advertising

One of the most impressive developments to come from social media for businesses is the ability to serve highly targeted ads in an environment that’s much cheaper than many competing advertising channels. Not only can you create micro-segmented audiences, but the nature of social allows you to pivot quickly, changing content, creative, or targeting in just a few moments. As people spend more time online, it’s key for brands to be aware of where their potential customers “live” online.

Conducting market research can be a key piece of this, but if you don’t have the resources for that, simply asking your current customers and then testing different platforms can be an effective starting point. Remember, successful social media efforts are always honest, creative, and relevant. The goal is to create an environment where your customers can engage with your brand, not a platform to sell to them. Play the long game by building trust over time and you’ll find that your customer loyalty skyrockets.