Social media has ushered in incredible benefits to businesses by delivering interactive ways to engage with customers. Today in the business world, it is no longer guaranteed that strong marketing initiatives will definitely convert consumers into immediate customers. Due to this, businesses are now forced to cultivate new strategies that aggrandize overall customer experience. As a result, brands that want to stay relevant have no choice but to adapt digital technologies.
Social media as a cost cutting tool
It has been cited from prestigious publications that close to a million small and medium enterprises have embraced Social media technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and online video sharing sites such as You Tube to save directly on marketing and other operational costs. According to a recent survey in the UK conducted by 02 Company, it has been revealed that more than 500 companies with less than 20 members of staff are using social media to send an approximate three million tweets each day.
In the same survey it was found that Twitter users were saving approximately £5,000 on direct marketing and distribution costs. Also 62% of the survey respondents mentioned cost savings as the main motivational factor for embracing social media in their marketing endeavours. A third of the respondents also admitted that they had managed cost savings of up to £1,000 in their overall marketing and recruitment cost.
Enterprises can also deploy Pinterest technology that provides a visually stimulating channel for promoting products and services. This service is free of charge, and it comes with interactive ways to engage potential customers with the company products. For instance, rather than providing some unnecessary lengthy descriptions of a product, a simple picture may do. This substantially cuts on marketing costs.
Social media in research and development
Enterprises can also leverage social media tools to know more about their clients. By utilizing features such as like button, comments, and share, enterprises constantly listen to client conversations while engaging the same consumers in a dialogue. In this manner the company stands to benefit from direct feedback from the client, and as a result the company-client relationship is enhanced. Social media can also be used in customer service.
Social Media and Search Engine Optimization
Social media has transformed itself as a key factor in Google’s algorithm calculation that is used to work out ranks of websites in search engines. Web pages tend to rank higher when they are followed, liked, or shared, and generally discussed about on social networking platforms.
Also when video is used in product description, search engine optimization is enhanced. Fresh video content updated on a regular basis tends to boost SEO rankings, and increased website traffic can be converted into more inquiries, hence more sales, implying increased profit margin.
It can therefore be concluded that social media provides amazing opportunities for businesses to interact with their customers. It is therefore of paramount importance that businesses should integrate social media into their overall customer experience, because when an enterprise is focused on fostering positive brand experience through social media it stands to benefit from valuable business insights that also impact positively on customers overall shopping experience. As a result, customer trust and loyalty is enhanced, because customers perceive the business as having their best interests in mind.
Yogesh Mankani contributed this guest post for WhoIsHostingThis.com – click here to learn more about their webhost reviews. Yogesh is a freelance writer with a penchant for business social media uses. His article mainly appear on business sites.
