Social networks: What are the benefits for your business?

A few figures alone allow us to grasp the influence that social networks have on consumer behavior:

• 96% are influenced by the e-reputation of the brand when buying online (source ludosln.net);
• 50% choose a local VSE/SME according to its e-reputation (ratings, comments, customer opinions…) (source reputationvip.com);
• 71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social networks are likely to recommend it to their friends and family. (source: www.grizzlead.com);
• 62% of customers are sufficiently influenced by negative comments about a brand on social networks to stop being a customer. (source: www.grizzlead.com).

Due to a lack of time and/or knowledge in digital marketing, but also because they do not fully measure the benefits they can derive from it, many small businesses and convenience stores make little use of the potential of social networks. However, not taking advantage of social networks is tantamount to depriving themselves of an inexpensive and effective way to reach 64% of Luxembourg’s population, which has grown by more than 7% in the last 8 months.

So let’s take a closer look now at the various advantages that social networks bring to a local company’s digital strategy.

The most visible advantage of social networks is that they allow a company to address its audience directly and to interact with them in a more direct and transparent way than communication via a website. These two characteristics, which condition the audience – which is a quantitative criterion – and notoriety – which is a qualitative criterion, play an active role in building a company’s e-reputation, an e-reputation that is a determining factor in acquiring credit in the eyes of subscribers and customers.

The audience.

Social networks are a real springboard to improve your visibility. Indeed, by giving a wider echo to the blog articles of your site, but also, for example, by publishing information such as events, promotions, news, you will be able, thanks to the strong reactivity of social networks, to attract a wider audience to your website which remains logically the main pillar of your digital communication.

SMO (Social Media Optimization) is the set of rules to follow to optimize the conversion of your publications on social networks and optimize their impact on your website. SMO does not have a direct effect on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but by increasing the traffic on your site – and by building visitor loyalty – you send a positive signal to Google, which in turn will not fail to adapt the positioning of your site’s pages in its results.

The notoriety.

If the choice of the social network to communicate on depends largely on the nature of your business and the digital habits of your target audience, the direct and regular links that you will maintain with your community of subscribers are the ideal way to:

Humanize your communication. Adapt your publications to the codes and expectations of your target audience, be entertaining and informative so that your subscribers are delighted to see the publications appearing in their feeds.

Affirm your personality. The relationship you establish with your customers is more intimate and more embodied than the one you can have with them through other media (including your own site).

Show yourself as an opinion leader. Whatever your industry, displaying your expertise and appearing as an opinion leader – i.e. being the source of information on topics related to your business – is a great way to gain the trust of consumers and to keep you in mind when they make their next purchase.

To generate leads with social networks there are two possibilities: virality and paid ads.

Virality.

As a reminder, virality is a positive spiral that occurs when your subscribers or any other user of a social network begin to like, comment on and share your posts. In doing so, they share your posts with new audiences (usually their friends and subscribers) who in turn distribute them. This number of shares as well as other statistics such as:

• The number of likes;
• The number of followers;
• The reach of your posts on your page;
• The number of times you share your posts…

…are part of the tracking tools integrated by Facebook, to allow you to measure the impact of your posts.

Paid Ads.

Going viral is not an easy task, although of course, without social networks, it would be almost impossible. So there is another alternative to reach beyond the audience of your subscribers: paid publications. These offer the advantage of being able to precisely target the consumption habits and profile of the audience you are targeting.

Social networks offer advertising formats specially designed to collect these leads. These ads can actively participate in your sales funnel (the process by which a new contact becomes a customer).

Unlike Google ads ads that are based on the choice of keywords, social networks allow you to target buying intentions and behavioral profiles. Thanks to the crossing of several criteria: location, tastes and consumption habits, age, gender, CSP… ads on social networks make it possible to target your audience like a sniper to present them with a clearer and better-defined offer.

It’s decided, you want to set up a communication strategy in social media and take advantage of their many benefits? But you don’t have the time or the technical and marketing knowledge to do so?

Contact us! As experts in social media marketing we will be happy to take up this challenge and bring you the best results.