Thousands of businesses have adopted the revolutionary inbound methodology over the years. But have...
When a social media campaign is creative and well-executed, it can be a powerful addition to your inbound marketing arsenal. With so many consumers using social media every day, this presents a great opportunity for businesses who want to reach and entice their online audience.
Here’s why social media marketing alongside your inbound efforts is a no-brainer:
- Increases your inbound traffic
- Helps you get a better understanding of your audience
- Inspiration for your own content
- Cost effective alongside your inbound efforts
- SEO and social work together
- Enhances brand awareness and authority
1. Increases your inbound traffic
Your social media provides yet another way to gain more inbound traffic. Social media marketing is an excellent strategy to complement not only your SEO efforts but your overall methodology.
Each piece of content that you post to your social media is another opportunity to entice new visitors to your site. Once the visitor gets to your site, you have that all-important opportunity to convert.
To get the most inbound traffic possible, it’s essential that you consistently share content that is engaging for your target audience. The more quality content that you post, the more chances you have to engage new leads. If your website is optimised for conversions, then it’s only a matter of time before these leads convert into customers.
Also, take advantage of the features offered by the social platform you’re using. For example, you can create live videos on Facebook to share updates or you can utilise Twitter’s underrated list feature to segment users.
2. Helps you get a better understanding of your audience
Connecting with your ideal target audience is simple when you’re active on the same channels that they are. In other words, don’t make your audience come to you - seek them out.
If you’re all about inbound but you aren’t on social media, you could be missing out on an important chance to connect with your customers. No matter who you’re trying to reach, you can find your audience on one of the many popular social media channels.
By connecting and engaging with your social media followers, you’ll be able to build lasting relationships. Interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and answering their queries all helps to increase brand loyalty.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products and establish their pain points, build trust and show them how much you value their input. Social media marketing gives you a valuable opportunity to gain insights into your customers. Fact.
When you interact with leads and current customers on social media, you’re able to see what your customers are really like.
Through social listening, you can find out what your customers’ greatest challenges and concerns are and then work to create more content around these topics. This is great information for creating your buyer personas by the way
3. Inspiration for your own content
No matter what industry you’re in or who your target market is, there’s a good chance that your competitors are already utilising social media channels. Have a little snoop, see what they do well and identify how you can do it better. Keep tabs on them, literally.
Don’t be afraid to show some character in your posts. A whopping 90% of consumers are more likely to engage with posts that embrace the company’s personality.
4. Cost effective alongside your inbound efforts
One of the greatest benefits of social media marketing is how it helps you cut costs without sacrificing results.
Most of your social media engagement and reach will come from sharing your inbound content - it can take some time to do it successfully but the results are well worth it.
Even just a few hours a week can have significant results. Depending on your goals and the size of your campaign, it’s pretty inexpensive to run paid ads on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
No matter how small your budget is, you’re able to make an impact on these channels to reach new leads.
5. SEO and social work together
We know you’re already focused on improving your SEO. Isn’t everybody?
But did you know that search engines may be considering your social media presence when it comes to their rankings? Thriving brands have a healthy social media presence and often, that presence acts as a signal to search engines that your brand is credible.
Though the ranking goalposts are always moving, it’s safe to say that active social media channels will help you in the end. Search engines pay attention to your social media behaviour, especially links to social content and your overall engagement.
Not only could your social media presence impact your rankings, but remember that your social media profiles will most likely show up on that lovely first-page of Google when consumers are searching for you.
With proper SEO practices in place, you can get some impressive organic results.
If a possible customer clicks on your social profiles and sees the last time you posted was in 2016, this might deter them. That’s why it’s important to not only consistently publish superb content on your social media channels, but also check your profile information is up-to-date.
6. Increase brand awareness and authority
Due to the immense amount of people on social media, you can see why sharing content related to your products has the potential to improve brand awareness.
Marketing through social media builds authority for your brand. It’s an important part of effectively positioning your business as a thought leader in your industry. The more content you share on social media, the more opportunities you have to demonstrate your expertise to leads and customers.
When others share your content or mention your brand in their posts, this helps build your brand authority even more. It inspires a new audience to see what your business is all about. If you want to remain competitive in the digital world, it’s important that you start working toward building a solid presence on social media.
Social media content gives you an effective outlet for demonstrating your industry expertise and knowledge. It’s one of the best ways to set yourself apart from the competition and bring in more relevant online traffic.
Not to mention, it fits nicely into the inbound methodology.
What to expect in your inbound marketing strategy
A whole lot of stuff goes into an inbound strategy and social media is just one factor. There’s lots of things that all contribute to the success of your campaigns.
Our download will give you a walkthrough of what you should expect throughout the year. To see the journey for yourself, click on the link below.
