Why Social Media is Essential for Business

It’s unavoidable. Love it or loathe it, social media plays a major part in our lives today. Teenagers, it seems, were born with phones attached to their hands and it is estimated that over 60% of the world’s population uses social media – that’s about 5billion. Given that millions of people can’t get access to it (there are 47million in the Amazon rainforest for example) this is some figure. Therefore, it only makes sense that it has become indispensable for businesses too. Social media can greatly enhance brand building, growth, content creation and distribution, advertising and overall communication. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter enable companies to reach new and highly targeted potential customers, with more than four out of every five Instagram users saying they discover new products on the platform. The platforms enable companies to humanise their brand and display how products can benefit their customers. LinkedIn is where business leaders tend to hang out and it is the top network for Business to Business (B2B) content marketers. Social media posts and adverts are also a great way to drive traffic to your website and they are a low commitment way to generate leads. Social accounts are a critical part of a business’s sales funnel – the process through which a new contact becomes a customer. And if posts ‘go viral’, you open up a new avenue of potential customers you would otherwise have not reached. You can also keep a handle on your business’s reputation by dealing efficiency and professionally with queries or complaints via social channels. New platforms will inevitably spring up to rival the established ones, but we have to accept not only is social media  here to stay, it works. It really works.