An effective social media strategy with regular activity can let you build awareness for your brand and reach new audiences that you are unlikely to touch through other forms of advertising. It can also help you to build strong relationships with your customer base, developing loyalty and promoting a strong brand image. Especially in the current climate, businesses are discovering the strong results which follow from a strategic social media presence: more sales, more new and returning customers, better return on investment and more awareness for their brand, resulting in stronger growth.

Social media is not only a strong marketing tool in itself, it also supports and assists other marketing activities and will help you achieve broader results. Here are five ways that social media can support and promote other marketing efforts;

1. Public Relations

PR will give you external news articles which can be shared across your social media channels, effectively increasing your brand’s credibility. Social networking enables instant sharing of information and can be easily picked up and posted by other bloggers and online journalists. This offers you wider coverage of your news and ensures it reaches a larger audience. You can also help nurture your business relationships by tagging the sources in your content.

2. Customer Service

Customer service can be enhanced with a click of a button through social media. Nowadays, customers tend to enquire about products and services through DM (Direct Messaging) and comments on posts. Social Media gives you the ability to reach your customers 24/7 and offer first-class customer service in the palm of your hand. Make sure you’re fully up to date with settings on all of your social media platforms so that it’s easy for your customers to get hold of you, for example, set up ‘auto messaging’ where your customers will automatically be prompted with an acknowledgement message if they contact you out of office hours.

3. Case Studies

Highlight your key stats by sharing some example Case Studies. One way of doing this would be to share a link to a case study and tag the customer in the post. The trick here is to post your case studies in a way that attracts the right people to click through, rather than just a generic message. LinkedIn is a great platform for getting your case studies noticed by fellow businesses. Add your case studies to your list of publications and/or share them in relevant LinkedIn Groups.

4. Pay-per-click

Successful PPC marketers know that testing is key, so bring that concept over to your social media. For example, use Facebook Audience Insights to get a better handle of your best-performing demographics and share some of your results.

5. Events and Sponsorships

Attending and sponsoring events are a great way to network with other businesses and will allow you to discuss your services face to face with potential suitors. Many of these are being moved online to ‘virtual networking events’ but can still give you the chance to connect with your new contacts via social media. Connect with each other on LinkedIn and post lots of Instagram stories throughout your event.

In order to get the most out of your social media, you need to make sure that your social media plays the right role in your overall marketing plan and spend your time and energy in ensuring your social media management backs this up. If you don’t have the time to do this in house, then hiring a social media agency can take care of the whole process for you.

We’re a team of experienced social media managers here at South Coast Social, and we’re hard at work creating great content for our clients every day.

To find out more about what we do, contact us today via our online form or give us a call on 01202 985022.