The Impact of Social Media on Business Performance

lauryn preston

Over the past few decades, social media has become increasingly popular amongst consumers. This allows business owners to harness the power of social media marketing as another marketing tool in their digital marketing strategy.

The impact of social media on business growth, for the most part, is a positive impact.

According to GetAmbassador.com, 71% of consumers who have had a favorable social media service experience with a business are likely to recommend it to others.

Small businesses that are not taking advantage of a social media marketing strategy are missing out on an inexpensive way to effectively reach almost half of the world’s population who are social media users. Whether you’re running a small business, online store, or large enterprise, social media marketing is vital to the success of your business.

Social media marketing and management can help you connect with your company’s target audience, engage with potential customers, and grow your business overall.

In this post, we’ll go over the benefits of social media for branding, content marketing, growth, communication, advertising, getting relevant data, and providing a return on investment.

Why is Social Media Important for Business?

The impact of social media on business is that social media has drastically transformed the landscape of online or digital marketing for small businesses, especially. Now that small businesses can effectively market their business on social media platforms, the playing field for local businesses has become a little more “fair.”

New business entities can now enter their prospective markets with the opportunity to be successful because of social media marketing.

Social media essentially lowers the barrier to entry for most business industries. In turn, this increases competition, which can lower prices and encourage all businesses, including already-established businesses, to provide greater customer service and improve product quality.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Branding

Social media provides a way for business owners to increase brand awareness and remain in contact with their existing customers and potential customers. Social media channels are quickly becoming the go-to source of information for consumers.

Increase Brand Awareness

44% of local businesses say they depend on social media marketing to generate brand awareness, and 41% of businesses depend on social media to drive revenue.

Over half of the population has at least one social media account. So, social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, are great places to reach new customers.

And, if you’re a new business owner that believes that social media marketing is only beneficial for brands that already have a loyal following, think again!

Almost 25% of Facebook users use a social media platform to find products.

Create Brand Authenticity

Good social media campaigns provide the ability to create real human connections with your target audience. In terms of social media marketing for businesses, this is one of the key benefits.

When a brand introduces its followers to those who make up the company and interacts with customers who are already using and benefitting from its services or products, this establishes brand authenticity.

Brand authenticity helps build trust. And, when your potential customers trust your brand, they’re more inclined to purchase from your brand when compared to other similar companies.

Many businesses have found success showcasing how their brand values affect their products or services on social media.

Establish Industry Thought Leadership

Over the past several years, studies have shown that the general population trusts the government, media, and large business institutions less than they ever have. Consumers are now looking for brands to offer helpful social insights and information.

We all know that there is no better place to share insightful information than on a social media platform.

Stay Top of Mind With Consumers

Around 50% of those involved in a research study conducted by the Pew Research Center said they check their social media accounts multiple times per day.

Also, internet users spend an average of two hours daily on social media.

Investing time and money into social media efforts help ensure that your business can connect with your existing and potential customers every time they log in!

Make sure that your brand image is a positive one!

In order to accomplish this, keep your social media posts light, entertaining, and informative. This will ensure that your social media followers look forward to seeing new content from your brand on their social media feeds.

When consumers have a positive view of your brand and your brand is top-of-mind for them, your business will be their first choice!

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that your social media efforts need to take over your life. You don’t need to monitor social platforms nonstop to succeed. You can invest in social media scheduling tools, like Kiopi, to post your social media content well in advance.

Benefits of Social Media Platforms for Content Marketing and Distribution

Promote Website Content

Promoting your content on various social media channels is a great way to get your content in front of new people and your target audience. This is a great way to begin proving your expertise and expanding your company’s audience.

As a social media strategist, in order to maximize your content marketing efforts, make sure that you’re utilizing a social media content calendar like the one offered by Kiopi.

Source Organic Content

In terms of sourcing organic content, there are two different ways that a business can go about this:

Source Content Ideas on Social Media

Source User-Generated Content

When you're trying to source ideas on social media, you can ask your followers what they want specifically. You can also engage in social listening using one of Kiopi's social listening tools for business. This will help you come up with content ideas that you can write yourself.

In layman's terms, ask people what they want and then give them what they're asking for.

This form of social media monitoring is the best way to ensure you create content your audience will like.

Possibly Go Viral

Content that resonates with a large audience has the potential to go viral on social media. As people start liking, sharing, and commenting on social media posts, the content is exposed to entirely new audiences. When a post goes viral, this takes this simple concept and multiplies it exponentially.

Viral content has the potential to reach thousands or even millions of new viewers.

In a world where there is more social media content than one person can possibly digest in a lifetime, a friend’s social media share acts as a sort of buffer or pre-screening.

Going viral isn’t an easy task. For the most part, the process of going viral boils down to strategy and luck. But, if you aren’t posting on social media, you have no chance of going viral.

Benefits of Social Media for Business Growth

Social marketing efforts will help your business get its name out there! For business owners interested in brand building, devising a marketing plan across social channels is a great way to start!

Social media offers company owners the unique ability to build brand awareness, generate engagement, and increase revenue–all without breaking the bank. And, if you’re a business owner who believes this doesn’t apply to real-life situations, check out this recent statistic:

Consumers aged 18-32 state that social commerce is their most influential purchasing tool.

This means that the average person who sees a service or product they like on a social platform will be likely to at least investigate or make a purchase.

Increase Website Traffic

Social media posts and ads are great ways to drive traffic to your website. They’re also a great way to organically grow your Instagram following.

Social media platforms are quickly becoming a huge source for consumers to learn more about businesses. Many brands use social accounts to share important information about new products, services, promotions, or deals. This provides real value for businesses by creating a bigger audience and more sales!

Sharing organic content that you’ve created, such as a new service page, blog post, or YouTube video, to social media platforms is a great way to increase website traffic.

75% of business owners who have invested in social media marketing say that they’ve increased traffic.

Additionally, over time, brands that engage in social chats, especially when they’re engaging beyond the purposes of self-promotion, tend to see an increase in brand loyalty. Social media offers businesses the opportunity to guide the average consumer along the customer journey.

In order to see the largest increase in website traffic, make sure that you have links to your website on all of your social media profiles and on all relevant social media posts.

Generate Leads for Your Business

One of the most important aspects of social media for businesses is the low-commitment option it provides for customers to express interest in your brand, services, and products.

Lead generation is one of, if not the most important, goals of digital marketing and paid advertising.

Social media offers businesses the opportunity to gain new customers, increase online reviews, make improvements based on customer feedback, increase website traffic, and boost sales–all while offering the two-way communication that potential and existing customers prefer without them having to make any financial investment whatsoever!

Partner With Social Media Influencers and Increase Brand Recommendations

Recommendations from friends or family members play an important role in influencing consumers’ decisions. But so do online reviews.

When customers are actively talking about your brand on social media, this is the online equivalent of word of mouth. Social media platforms provide brands with the unique opportunity to build brand awareness and establish credibility. This sets your company up for an increase in sales, which is obviously the goal.

One great way to drive this social “word of mouth” advertising is to partner with social media influencers. Social media influencers are people who have a large social media following and can help guide their audience to follow your brand, as well.

When it comes to the impact of social media on business, social media influencers deserve a huge amount of credit for the positive impact.

Are you an influencer? Here are our top influencer marketing tools!

Increase Sales

While the short-term goal of your marketing may be to increase leads or brand loyalty, the ultimate goal of any digital marketing campaign is an increase in sales.

As the number of people on social media continues to rise, social media and other relevant platforms will become increasingly important for businesses that want to improve their overall customer experience and increase sales.

If you aren’t aligning your social media marketing efforts with your business’s sales goals, then quite frankly, you’re missing out!

Benefits of Social Media for Business Communication

Customers have the expectation that they’ll be able to communicate with a brand on social media.

Recent research states that 42% of consumers expect a response from a brand on social media within 1 hour.

Social media platforms are an excellent way to ensure that you actively communicate with existing customers and potential new customers who have reached out to your business. Providing omnichannel service is now an important aspect of growing your business and maintaining brand loyalty.

Business Reputation Management

Your customers will talk about your brand on social media, regardless of whether or not you are on the platform.

It’s up to you to proactively address negative feedback while highlighting the positive.

For example, if a disgruntled customer is frustrated about shipping times or bad customer service, if you’re active on social media, then you can address the issue professionally before it gets out of hand.

And on the other hand, if a customer shares a positive review of your product or service, then you can share their post so that others can see the value of your brand.

Crisis Management

Silence is simply not an option when your brand’s reputation is on the line. If you’re a small business, you’re not likely to have a large-scale brand “blow up,” but the larger your company grows, the more your brand is at risk for a crisis.

Being active on social media is one of the fastest and most effective ways to address issues if the worst occurs.

Customer Engagement

Social media networks allow your brand to interact directly with your customers and followers. And unlike most forms of traditional media, it allows your customers and fans to interact directly with your brand.

Social media networks offer a two-way street between brands and consumers.

The more you engage with your audience, whether this is through interactive engagement posts or simply replying to a comment, the more they’ll respond to your brand. In order to increase user engagement, be active in social media monitoring. While it’s obvious that you should respond when someone comments on your social media account, you should also respond whenever someone mentions your brand.

Improve Customer Service

Most consumers expect brands to be active on social media networks. In fact, many of your customers will seek out your brand on social media when they need additional customer service.

With the right tools, customer service on social media can complement traditional customer service.

How to Prove ROI for Business Social Media Marketing Strategy

One of the biggest hurdles in digital marketing is proving a return on investment. However, businesses have access to a few social media analytics tools when they run social media ads through their social accounts.

If you’re a business using targeted advertising on social media and want access to more data, Kiopi’s social posting service also provides an easy-to-use social media analytics dashboard.

Digital marketing data tools, like Google Analytics or Kiopi, allow you to track the website traffic that is generated from social media marketing. These tools make calculating return on investment from paid and organic social media management campaigns easier.

Ready to Harness the Power of Social Media Marketing? Kiopi Can Help!

Kiopi allows you to manage your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Business account all in one easy-to-use application!

From one single dashboard, you’re able to use our scheduling tool to schedule social posts across five different social accounts, engage with your customers, and easily measure how much your social media efforts are affecting your business!

Use Kiopi’s social media content calendar to plan your social marketing strategy and our analytics tools to optimize your social campaigns.

With Kiopi, we make social media management easy! We offer a 14-day risk-free trial so that you can see if we’re the best fit for your business!

Ready to try KIOPI? Start your free trial today.