Part 5: Why Is Social Media Marketing Important?

Lure Creative is a full-service marketing company in Kansas City. We help small to medium-sized businesses Get Found & Be Known. In our adventures, we’ve found that many small to medium sized-business owners have questions about marketing, marketing budgets, and just what it takes to grow their business in this digital/online world. We have answers! So we decided to try to answer some of those questions in an ongoing series of blog posts. Part 5 of our Small Business Marketing Questions Answered series focuses on a common question: 

Why Is Social Media Marketing Important?

Social media may seem like one of the less important tools when you think about all of the items in the typical small business budget like website design & maintenance, SEO, PPC/Google ads, email campaigns, etc. But don’t underestimate the benefits of social media in your marketing mix. Besides the brand-building benefits including increasing your brand awareness, humanizing your brand, staying top of mind, and establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry, there are some more tangible benefits of social media to consider. 

Benefits of Social Media for Growing Your Business

Because we focus on growth in our quest to help small businesses, there are several benefits of social media that may not seem obvious to the average small business owner. We’d like to focus on these real, tangible, growth-oriented benefits that may be going unappreciated and show you how they can actually increase your traffic and ultimately sales.

1. Increased Website Traffic

Social media posts and ads can drive traffic to your website. It’s easy to share great content from your blog or website on your Facebook or Linked-In page. Create a teaser with a link to your latest blog, how-to video, or quick tip for customers and you not only get them to click through to your website increasing traffic, but you can create a feeling of leadership and trustworthiness in your industry. When you include your website address in all of your social media profiles, people who want to learn more about your company, products or services can do it with one easy click. 

2. Increased Leads

Social media is an easy way for potential customers to express interest in your business and your products. Because social media platforms know the importance of lead generation to businesses, many of them offer advertising formats specifically designed to collect leads. For example, Facebook lead ads (newsletter subscriptions, demo requests, contest registration, etc.) are promoted forms that capture info (name, phone number, email address, etc.) from customers while offering opportunities to connect. When a visitor clicks on a lead ad, they receive a form that’s pre-populated with information from their Facebook profile so that it’s quick and painless to fill out thus increasing the likelihood that they complete the action. 

3. Targeted Advertising

Social media ads provide accurate targeting through demographic information, geographic preferences, and even online behaviors. The ability to create specific messages for different groups of potential customers, and only pay for the exact viewers you want to reach, means social media is a valuable tool for sales.

4. Retargeting Ads

Tracking tools allow companies to get back in front of people who have already browsed or shopped a website to remind them of their interest in certain products through social media ads, thus increasing the probability of them purchasing the item(s). Using tracking tools like the Facebook pixel, you can have ads show up in their social media pages for the exact products they have browsed on your website or placed in an online shopping cart.

Because the number of people using social media is still growing and sales tools on social media are evolving as well, social media’s ability to increase sales continues to look very promising for the future as well as now. People will turn to social media more and more for e-commerce and product searches in the future. So while a website and SEO may take top priority when it comes to budget, don’t discount the benefits of other marketing tools including social media. 

We hope this helps you see the importance of including social media in your marketing mix and the value of posts and ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms. A strong social media presence can help you increase leads and sales. If you have questions about your marketing, please feel free to contact us at Lure Creative. We’d like to be your marketing partner and help you Get Found and Be Known.