4 Tips to Grow Your Business With Social Media

Fun fact; over half the world's population is now on social media. According to the latest reports, social media users have grown to 4.7 billion as of July 2022. That's about 59% of the global population! So it's no wonder most businesses are now taking social media seriously.

Social platforms provide a unique opportunity to attract customers and build relationships with existing customers. However, this only works when you adopt an effective social media strategy.

In this article, we'll discuss 5 ways that social media can help your business grow. Let's get started.

1. Provide a source of UGC to build trust

UGC, or user-generated content, is content related to your brand crafted by someone not associated with your business. UGC could be, for example, a text, a picture, a video, or a podcast shared by a happy customer.

Using UGC is a great way to build trust. Pictures or reviews from happy customers act as referrals and help make your brand authentic. In addition, you can reach a larger audience as the UGC will serve as "votes," attracting more people to engage with your brand.

Here's how Pottery Barn uses UGC on Instagram. First, they ask people to post pictures of the brand's products with the @PotteryBarn username tag and #mypotterybarn hashtag.

The brand can track the pictures quickly and choose the best shots for the Pottery Barn Instagram feed. That's free and effortless advertising supplied by social network active users.

UGC can show your audience how your product looks or works when used by a regular user, not just by a random actor. That can help drive more conversions. It explains why UGC is so crucial when building your landing page. It can make all the difference between a random visitor and one that converts into a paying customer.

The beauty of UGC is that you can also incorporate it at different stages of the sales funnel. For example, in addition to using it to build brand awareness, you can use customer testimonials towards the bottom of the funnel. By showing more social proof, you are more likely to win back a customer who is about to leave. 

2. Become a channel to address your customers’ concerns 

Customers often use social media comments and mentions to reach out to brands. Timely responses can help you create a better online presence. Monitor mentions and hashtags about your business and industry with a hashtag analytics tracker. You will learn what people are saying about your brand.

Brands monitoring comments can use them to improve their customer service. Like, when a customer tweeted Seamless food delivery company to point out a mistake in the order, the brand responded by asking for details to be able to take action: 

Responding to posts means respecting your customers' opinions. As a result, your clients will feel they can turn to you and that their opinions matter. Therefore, it matters to take lessons from social media comments, especially the negative ones.

3. Offer more insights into your competitors

Social media channels allow you to check what your biggest competitors are doing, from promotions, and trendy challenges, to new launches. You can monitor your competitors' hashtags and the influencers they work with. You can also learn the content and campaigns they run to keep up with the trends. So take the time to analyze your competitors' content.

An excellent example of a brand that uses this strategy is Chick-fil-A. A few years back, Popeyes posted a tweet announcing its new product: 

Since the post generated a lot of engagement, Chick-fil-A made a similar post. 

The post generated even more engagement when Popeyes retweeted Chick-fil-A's post and answered with the phrase "... y'all good?"

Analyzing your competitors' social media channels is just as important as optimizing your blog posts or updating your software. So you should make it a regular task. Frequent insights will help you spot the market trends, so you don't stay behind your competitors. 

You can also check what other people say about your competitor and improve your product or service to win those customers over.

4. Expand your sales channels with shoppable posts

Shoppable posts help your customers make purchases with ease through your posts. 

You should turn some of your social posts into shoppable content. This strategy shortens the sales funnel and converts active users much faster.

If social media users scroll through the posts and see items they love, they can make the purchase right there, on the platform. Talk of sales acceleration.

Shoppable content is popular on Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. 

In Closing

Social media can be a great help for your marketing and sales efforts. You can make better business decisions by understanding how your audience responds to your content. 

You have to make use of social media channels in your marketing efforts. Create UGC that helps you become a trusted brand. Provide better and faster customer service and gain insights into your competitors. You'll also see great results when you include social content in your sales funnel and create shoppable posts. 

Social media channels are powerful. You just need to know how to use all that information to help your business. Good luck!