Why Social Media and How It Benefits Businesses

Social media was considered a platform for entertainment until a few years ago. With the popularity of YouTube for its educational content, the perspective of social media has changed significantly. Today, LinkedIn is considered a social media platform for B2B, while Instagram and Facebook target B2C. Brands are hiring influencers to market their products and services while creating a brand presence on social media.

Businesses have found that leveraging social media has its own set of benefits:

Brand Awareness: Brand awareness was a topic discussed by Fortune 500 companies a decade ago. With social media, small businesses are creating their own brands, and consumers are recognizing these companies. Brand recognition has become crucial, and with social media, it has become easy to reach millions of people, provided you do the right thing. Smaller companies like Sleepy Owl are competing with established brands like Nescafe and Bru due to effective social media marketing. Did you know Sleepy Owl, established in 2016, has a major digital marketing budget far exceeding non-digital media marketing platforms?

High Engagement: Social media allows customers to voice their opinions. You can receive feedback, points of view, and testimonials about your product. Consumers love to be heard and prefer products tailored to their specific needs. Higher engagement helps you understand your customers and address issues promptly. More engagement means more referrals. Always ensure engagement is positive and turn negative responses into positive ones quickly. With comments and feedback, you always have the opportunity to please a disgruntled client.

Increased Conversion: Engagement often results in positive outcomes and directly influences conversion and sales. You can convince and follow up with prospects through regular updates on products, offers, and more. Statistics show a conversion rate of 2-5% if social media marketing is done well, comparable to other marketing mediums including PPC and organic search marketing.

Enhanced Customer Insights: One of the biggest benefits of social media marketing is customer insights. As an entrepreneur, understanding how consumers think is challenging. Entrepreneurs often focus on sales, marketing, finance, and the product or service in general, sometimes neglecting the emotional factors of the consumer. Social media provides better insights into consumer thoughts and behaviors, allowing you to customize your products or services based on these insights.

Understanding Social Media Platforms and the Right One for You

1. Facebook: Facebook is one of the oldest social media platforms with 378 million users from India, approximately 25% of the Indian population. While initially considered a platform for entertainment, it has increased its influence on small businesses. The Facebook Marketplace is popular for showcasing services and products. More importantly, Facebook pages have helped many businesses create brand awareness and build communities.
2. Instagram: Instagram is the second most used social media platform in India, with steady growth expected to surpass Facebook by 10-15% by the end of 2024. Currently, there are approximately 362 million users in India, with 66% being men and 34% women. India has the second largest user base on Instagram. It is excellent for B2C brand building, allowing direct interaction with customers.
3. Twitter: Twitter is great for brand building and community creation, especially through a conversational approach to understanding consumer needs and complaints. It works well as a PR interface. Advertising reach in Twitter India is less than 1.9%, significantly lower than the total number of users, which is approximately 2.5 million. Despite this, it is an important platform for brand building if used correctly.
4. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is considered a social media platform with the highest spending power. Conversion, sales, and leads on LinkedIn are higher than on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Creating a brand on LinkedIn is essential for all B2B businesses, while B2C customers should also maintain a presence here. With over 101 million users in India, 59% of whom are between the ages of 25 and 34, LinkedIn is excellent for creating product and service awareness and brand building.
5. Pinterest: Pinterest is often overlooked but is one of the best platforms for creating a brand identity in industries like fashion, travel, tourism, architecture, and interior design. Creating a profile on Pinterest is easy and important for search engine optimization. If configured correctly, you can rank well for otherwise difficult keywords on Pinterest, helping push your brand identity forward.
6. YouTube: YouTube is the most used social media platform worldwide and in India. It has been a platform for content creation among influencers and businesses for decades. With long-form and short content options, YouTube helps create brand awareness, build a reliable follower and community base, and foster customer loyalty. With over 462 million users in India, YouTube is suitable for B2B, B2C, or even D2C businesses.

Choosing the Right Platform for Your Business

While you may want to start branding your business on all social media platforms, we recommend focusing on one or two initially. Though it may seem beneficial to start on all platforms, creating strategies and content for each takes time. Choose platforms where your industry is active and has a good following. For example, if you are in technology, LinkedIn and YouTube might be better than Instagram or Twitter. If you are in fashion, focus on YouTube for videos and Instagram for images and short clips.

Understanding your limitations is also crucial. If you do not have video content or are unwilling to create it, YouTube may not be suitable. Social media platforms require consistent content, with daily posts for at least a few years. Admarkon can help create graphical, video, and text content for your social media platforms.

Our Approach to Social Media Marketing

Strategy is key to success on social media platforms. When to post, what to post, how regularly to post, where to comment, what to comment on, and how to encourage people to like, comment, and share your content are all essential elements. Most social media platforms expect engagement; more engagement means higher visibility.

At Admarkon, we create a roadmap for your social media marketing profile. We start with analyzing your needs, followed by analyzing your competition and others in the same industry on various platforms. Based on the platforms we choose and you approve, we create strategies personalized to your business requirements.

What Is Involved:

Research:

We research what is popular on social media related to your industry, who your competitors are, and what they are doing. We also compare which social media platforms perform better for your industry.

Content Creation:

Social media platforms are content-hungry. You need to create content to stay on people’s minds regularly. We recommend creating one to three posts per platform. Prepare at least 30 days of content ahead, with some companies scheduling up to three months in advance.

Scheduling:

Schedule at least one month of content in advance. Consistent content activity creates a positive record with most social media platforms.

Engagement:

Spend at least 15-20 minutes interacting with visitors who have liked, commented, or shared your posts. Engaging with interested parties encourages them to follow you for further updates.

Stats and Tracking:

Track your social media performance to understand what works and what doesn’t. Replicate the successful elements of well-performing posts.

What Next? What Should I Do to Start Social Media Marketing?

Contact Admarkon now. Let us help you create your brand on social media platforms. We handle social media strategy, content creation, tracking, and the entire process systematically. We assist with community management, influencer marketing, audience engagement, and more, while providing regular performance reports and analytics.