9 Benefits of Social Media for Business

Consider that there are now more than 4.2 billion active social media users across the globe.  If you’re not taking advantage of social within your digital marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a fast, inexpensive, and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population.

Benefits of Social Media for Business

Let’s look at the many ways in which social media can help you connect with your target audience, engage with customers and grow your business.

Benefits of social media for brand building

1. Increase brand awareness

With over half of the world’s population using social media, platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter a natural place to reach new and highly targeted potential customers.

Think people only connect with brands they already know on social media? Consider that 83 percent of Instagram users say they discover new products on the platform.

When Stillhouse Spirits ran a Facebook campaign to increase brand awareness among outdoor enthusiasts, the company achieved a 17-point lift in ad recall.

2. Humanize your brand

The ability to create real human connections (a.k.a. Meaningful Relationship Moments) is one of the key benefits of social media for business. Introduce your followers to the people who make up your company and showcase how existing customers are using and benefiting from your products.

Authenticity builds trust. Trust, in turn, builds marketing receptiveness and drives new business. And social is the best place to get real!

Show how you’re embracing your brand values, how your product works in real life, and how you’re putting the interests of your employees and customers first.

3. Establish your brand as a thought leader

The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer found that while there has been a recent swing towards distrust of government, NGOs and media, business is an institution with a 61 percent level of trust. People are looking to brands for insights and information… and there’s no better place to share that than social media.

No matter what industry your business is in, social media offers the opportunity to establish your brand as a thought leader—the go-to source for information on topics related to your niche.

LinkedIn—particularly the LinkedIn Publishing Platform—is a great network to focus on when aiming to establish your thought leadership.

Hootsuite chairman and co-founder Ryan Holmes has more than 1.7 million followers on LinkedIn, where he shares his insights about social media and entrepreneurship.

4. Stay top of mind

Seventy percent of social media users log into their accounts at least once per day, according to a 2021 study by Pew Research Center, and many people (49 percent!) admit to checking social multiple times per day.

Social media gives you the opportunity to connect with fans and followers every time they log in. Keep your social posts entertaining and informative, and your followers will be glad to see your new content in their feeds, keeping you top of mind so you’re their first stop when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Benefits of social media for growth

5. Increase website traffic

Social media posts and ads are key ways to drive traffic to your website. Sharing great content from your blog or website to your social channels is a great way to get readers as soon as you publish a new post.

Participating in social chats can also be a great way to increase your visibility, get attention from new people, showcase your expertise, and drive traffic to your website. (Though make sure to go beyond self-promotion to offer real value!)

Include your website address in all of your social media profiles so that people who want to learn more about you can do so with one easy click.

6. Generate leads

Social media offers an easy and low-commitment way for potential customers to express interest in your business and your products. Lead generation is such an important benefit of social media for business that many social networks offer advertising formats specifically designed to collect leads.

7. Boost sales

Your social accounts are a critical part of your sales funnel—the process through which a new contact becomes a customer.

As the number of people using social media continues to grow and social sales tools evolve, social networks will become increasingly important for product search and ecommerce. The time is right to align your social marketing efforts with sales goals.

Benefits of social media for content creation and distribution

9. Promote content

Promoting your content on social channels is a great way to get your smart, well-researched content in front of new people, proving your expertise and growing your audience.