75 Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Want to know the return on investment of social media marketing? After careful
research, we have compiled the ultimate list of social media marketing benefits.
Most of the content in this blog is supported with research and studies from credible
sources. These sources include:

Recent studies and experiments performed by universities and research centers

Major media outlets, such as Forbes, Mashable, and Marketing Land
Top marketing software companies, such as HubSpot and Marketo
Real case studies and experience from our own social media marketing &
management company
To help you navigate through all 75 benefits, you can use the hyperlinks below as
your table of contents. You can learn more about the benefits of social media in
various categories. In addition, we have included links in each social media benefit
that links to supporting information. Now lets begin!

) Establish Trust

People purchase from brands they trust. You can establish trust through social
media. In the University of Londons study of the impact of social media on
consumers, Nick Hajli draws a direct correlation between trust, perceived
usefulness, and intent to buy. When people trust your brand and perceive your
product or services as useful, it indirectly influences their intent to buy.

2) Build Credibility

In light establishing trust, you also build credibility through social media marketing.
With increasing amounts of consumer engagement and followers, you are more
likely to influence potential buyers. In fact, recent consumer research indicates that
51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy from
brands they follow.

3) Enhance Brand Image

When people connect with your brand on social media, you can enhance your brand
image and tell your story. After appearing on ABCs Shark Tank, Grace and Lace
gained thousands of new fans and followers. Not only did they promote their
products, but they enhanced their brand by sharing their story. By communicating
the meaning of your brand and sharing your story, you can establish an emotional
connection with buyers.
4) Increase Brand Recognition

Over 2.8 billion people have access to Internet and 74% of online adults use social
media. It is a no-brainer that your brand can leverage social media to increase
brand awareness and recognition. It is important to increase the awareness of your
product or service. When consumers make purchasing decisions among different
options, they are more likely to select a product that they are familiar with.

5) Build Brand Equity

Large amounts of followers and interactions increase your brand equity on social
media. Brand equity is the value of your brand from the perception of consumers. In
an Inc. study on the value of social media followers, they found a positive
correlation between the amount of social media followers and business worth.
Companies with over 10,000 connections are 4 times more likely to have a higher
valuation than companies who do not. The value of building a strong social media
community will improve your brands worth to investors, bloggers, media, and
potential customers.

6) Grow a Long-Term Audience

While on the subject brand equity, it is important to note the long-term benefit of
growing established connections. The followers and fans you attract are with you
forever. As they grow, your brand will continue to influence more users, which will
influence sales. An example of this would be Thirsty Roots, a blog that grew over
300,000 Facebook fans. Now almost every time they post a product it results in
sales. Imagine the possibilities if your brand developed to be able to reach hundreds
of thousands of people for free.

7) Develop Relationship Capital

Building strong and meaningful relationships is a major benefit of social media. You
have access to engage and interact directly with your preferred customer to build a
bond. In Doves #SpeakBeautiful campaign, they engaged thousands of users
through inspiring positive remarks. This national campaign won the hearts of
thousands of people, which ultimately developed Doves relationship capital with
their customer base.

8) Develop a Brand Voice

Your brand can develop a strong brand voice on social media with the end goal of
developing authentic communication. The overall tone and feel of your brand can
be amplified with an attractive social media design, valuable content, and a tone
that is reflective of your brand. By developing your brand image and voice, you can
create a better customer experience for current and prospective customers. Coca-
Cola and Publix are great examples of this.

9) Humanize Your Brand

The ability to humanize your brand on social media will dramatically enhance your
marketing efforts. Over 60% of people are visual learners and through our work in
social media management, we have seen significantly higher conversion rates
through humanization. Psychologically, people like to interact with people, not
things. By humanizing your brand and showcasing real images of your customers or
employees, you can leverage this benefit to generate more results.

10) Influence Purchase Decisions

Social media marketing does not drive sales by itself. Great products and services
drive sales. However, sales and consumer purchasing decisions can be influenced
by social media marketing. All of the benefits listed above (and below) in this blog
ultimately plays a factor in influencing sales. Through great branding, established
trust, and perceived usefulness, your brand will influence purchase decisions.

11) Reach People with a Real Interest in Your Brand

The ability to laser-target various groups of people on social media is a major

benefit. For example, Facebook collects data on all of its users. This data includes
their interests, behaviors, jobs, income, and more based on their activities on
Facebook. In addition to this, Facebook also uses data from third-party companies
that categorize its users based on the types of websites they visit, purchases, and
more.

12) Increase Website Traffic

No website can survive without traffic. By increasing your website traffic, you are
likely to increase your sales. Social media can be used to deliver relevant traffic to
your website. Our own social media marketing company have built our brand up to
get thousands of organic traffic with very little advertising. You can do the same by
building up a strong social media presence.

What is the ROI of Social Media

13) Boost Customer Engagement

By increasing customer engagement, your brand can open the door to gaining
repeat purchases. In addition, the two-way communication style of social media
allows you to grab your customers hand through the buying process. Youre able to
answer product-related questions, develop deeper relationships, and add more
value to the customer. To learn ways to engage your customers, try reading 5 Ways
Social Media Can Increase Your Revenue from Existing Customers.

14) Increase Word of Mouth

The more engaged your customers are, the more likely they are to refer your
product to a friend. In Forbes article on why word of mouth is the most powerful
form of social media, Kimberly Whitler indicates that 92% of consumers believe
recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising. Hubspot
also researched this and found that 71% of people are more likely to purchase
based on social media referrals.

15) Leverage Various Media Formats (Video, Images, etc.)

By using various media formats, you can improve the customer experience with
your brand. An example of this would be Boom By Cindy Josephs website and social
media presence. Cindy Joseph uses high quality images and videos on Pinterest,
YouTube, and her website to walk her customers through the buying process. Below
is a screenshot of her website shopping cart, which wisely incorporates a video
description.
16) Its Cheaper

Social media can deliver thousands of relevant clicks to your website at low costs,
which increases your profit margins. In comparison to Google AdWords, recent
research indicates that social media advertising could be more than 10x cheaper
than bidding on keywords through Google advertising. In some instances, weve ran
social media advertising campaigns that generating clicks as low as $0.05 per click.

17) Geotargeting

Geotargeting is targeting people who are within a certain mile radius of your
business location. For brick and mortar companies, geotargeting is extremely
important. Very few advertising sources can pinpoint people within a 10 mile radius
of your exact business location. Social media happens to be one of them.
Geotargeting will help you attract more walk-in customers, drive more purchases at
sales events, and build more loyalty.
18) Advanced Targeting (Followers, Keywords, Interests)

As mentioned earlier, you can leverage social media to attract people who have a
sincere interest in your brand. Through advanced targeting that is available on
various social media platforms, you can target people differently. On Twitter, you
can target people who follow certain brands. On Pinterest, you can target people
who search for different keywords with promoted pins. On LinkedIn, you can target
people who work in various industries and hold certain job positions. By far, the
benefit of advanced targeting on social media is one of the most important.

19) Identify Target Audience

It is important to know who your target audience is. But, what if you dont know?
Because social media is so data-rich, you can analyze your competitors, listen to
consumers, and target different segments to find your target audience.

20) Track Your Results

The reason why social media advertising is so efficient is because it is trackable. You
can measure sales, website traffic, email subscriptions, and most importantly, the
effectiveness of your social media advertising efforts.

21) Make Informed Decisions with Historical Data

With insights into your efforts from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn reports, you can
identify where your campaign is lacking by analyzing historical data and interpreting
numbers. To avoid wasting advertising dollars, it is important that you understand
how to do this. In most cases, we recommend hiring a social media advertising
expert or company.

22) A/B Testing

A/B split testing with social media advertising is what online marketing is all about.
A/B testing is a method used to figure out the best way to promote your business
online. The benefit of doing this is to make sure you are guided by advertisements
that are statistically proven to perform. You can test different ad copy, images,
landing pages, and much more to identify what works best for you. As mentioned in
the previous benefit, you have the ability to let historical data guide your decisions.

23) Retargeting

On average, less than 10% of your website visitors will convert on their first visit to
your website. With retargeting, you can reach the people who visit your website
again. On social media, you can target advertisements specifically at people who
viewed your website. This gives you an opportunity to increase your conversion
rates. For more information on retargeting, read Why Every Marketer Should
Leverage Retargeting.
24) Social Media Attribution (More Touch Points)

Your customers are likely to interact with your brand many times before they decide
to purchase your product. They may watch a YouTube video, subscribe to your email
list, like your Facebook page, read your Google reviews, or follow you on Twitter.
Statistically, the more a consumer interacts with your brand, the more likely they
are to buy. By leveraging social media attribution, your brand will help move
interested buyers down your sales cycle and closer to buying your product.
25) Spark Lead Generation

Leads are people who are sincerely interested in learning more about your brands
products and services. There are millions of people on social media with a wide
variety of interests. To generate quality leads, you will need to connect your brand
to the group of people that is most likely to be interested in your products and
services. For case studies on social media lead generation, read some success
stories.

26) Increase Email Subscribers

Email marketing is still effective in this day and age. In fact, 91% of consumers use
email every day. Your brand can use social media as an engine to attract new leads
and leverage email marketing to nurture leads until they transact. In the same
manner that social media can drive relevant website traffic, it can pump up your
email list with relevant people.

27) Improve Sales

With a great brand, website, and product or service, social media can dramatically
impact your sales. In How I Made $41,254 Last Month with Pinterest, a small
business owner was able to significantly increase revenues through Pinterest
advertising. There are similar case studies for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and
LinkedIn. With an effective social media marketing approach, your business can
increase sales. However, it takes time and expertise to perfect a revenue-
generating formula.

28) Lower Customer Acquisition

The customer-acquisition costs of social media marketing is much less than

traditional outbound methods, such as cold calling, print, radio, and television
commercials. According to Hubspot, inbound marketing leads cost 61% less than
outbound. We have worked on campaigns that have reached over 1,000,000 people
with less than $5,000.00, which is just a fraction of what a television commercial
might cost.
29) Pull In Unexpected Customers

With the power of social media shares, referrals, and word-of-mouth, many indirect
sales may result from social media. For example, there may be situations in which
someone who learned about your brand on social media referred a friend to buy
your product or service. Google Analytics and other sophisticated analytics system
may not be able to trace sales like this back to social media.

30) Repeat Customers

On average, it costs 4 to 10 times more to acquire a new customer than to keep a

current one. One way to encourage client retention and repeat customers is by
engaging them on social media. By posting relevant content, staying active on a
daily basis, and deepening your relationships with your customer base, you can
remain top of mind when your customers are in need of your product or service
again.

31) New Product/Service Introduction

You can spend very little money to expose your new product or service to thousands
on social media. In How to Launch a New Product with Social Media, they mention
that your new product launch should not be your companys introduction to social
media. All of the relationships, fans, and followers that you develop on social media
will be the most interested in learning about your new product or service.

32) Promote Incentives to Drive Direct Response

Incentives and promotions can be a direct catalyst to driving people from social
media to your website to transact. One of the best ways to build a strong and loyal
customer base on social media is to reward them. You can offer discounts,
giveaways, contests, and more interactive incentives to engage customers.

33) Personalize Messaging to Different Segments

Your brand can personalize content to different segments of your target audience.
The benefit of doing this is to make your content extremely relevant to the reader.
The more relevant it is, the more results you will see. On Facebook, you can target
use dark posts, which is the Best Facebook Advertising Right Now according to Inc.
Watch the video below to learn more.

34) Integrate with Email Marketing

Most email marketing software today includes social media integrations. By

integrating your social media channels with your email marketing efforts, you can
drive more traffic to your social media channels. This will help your social media
efforts to thrive, while increasing the amount of consumer interactions through
email and social media.

35) Transform Your Websites Appearance and Performance

Your website and social media presence should work together. Adding social media
widgets to your website can dramatically improve its performance. You can include
links to your social media channels, sharing buttons for visitors to share your
website, or embed your entire social media feed into your website so that people
always know what is going on.

36) Incorporate with Traditional Media

Social media has revamped traditional advertising. Recent research indicates that
television commercials that incorporate hashtags are more effective. Why? Because
more than half of the population use social media and by integrating it into
traditional advertising, your brand can resonate more with the millions of people
who use social media daily. An example would be the Budweiser commercial below.

37) Influence Search Rankings

There is significant evidence that indicate that social media directly influences
search engine rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo. In Search Metrics Study on
Search Ranking Factors, social media websites were in the top 10. Hootsuite also
reports that the relationship between social media and SEO is real.

38) Increase Social Shares & Backlinks

A social media share occurs is when someone shares content from your website or
your social media channels that includes the link to your website. Backlinks are links
on other websites that points to your website. In the past, backlinks played the
largest role in increasing organic rankings. However, experts today say social shares
is the new link building for SEO.

39) More Brand Mentions

A brand mention is simply a mention of your brand on social media. Research

indicates that brand mentions also influence SEO rankings. Social media can be
used to increase your brand mentions. With great content, a growing following, and
solid engagement, your company can leverage brand mentions to increase your
organic rankings on Google.

40) Educate Your Target Audience

The more informed your prospects are about your product, the more likely they are
to buy from you. Social media can be used to inform and educate your audience
about the benefits of your products or services. By posting informative blogs,
highlighting testimonials, and product reviews, you can educate your target
audience on social media. Read 21 Memorable Ideas for Creating Social Media
Content for more ways to inform, educate, and engage people on social media.

41) Distribute Content to a Broad Audience

Content Marketing is the creation and publishing of content to inform, acquire, and
retain customers. Examples of content marketing include blogs, eBook, and white
papers. Social media can be used a content distribution network to fuel your
content marketing. It can be built into your content marketing process to support all
of content marketing efforts.

42) Increase Blog Traffic

Social media drives 31% of all website traffic. When leveraging social media
channels as a content distribution network, you can deliver hundreds and thousands
of traffic to your blog. All you have to do is connect your content with relevant
readers. And because you are already developing a strong following of relevant
people on social media, great content will easily drive traffic from social media to
your blog post.

43) Make Your Content Go Viral

While it is great to have a content distribution network, it is even more important to

include social media sharing buttons. According to HubSpot, you should include
social media sharing buttons on all of your marketing content. If your content is
good, people will share it on social media. And because social media will help your
content reach thousands of people, you just need to focus on it being good enough
to go viral.

44) Reach Hundreds and Thousands with Event Hashtags

It is important to use hashtags for your events because it is a way for people
attending the event to interact with each other. It is also a way for prospective
attendees to view a live stream of the hype or interactions around your event.
Because of the viral nature of social media, the friends and followers of everyone
who uses your event hashtag will see your event as well. If you can encourage
people to use your hashtag, you could double the amount of organic awareness of
your event.

45) Engage Attendees at Your Events

Using social media to engage event attendees before, after, or during events has its
benefits as well. You can use social media to respond to peoples comments or
questions. Gary Vaynerchuk used social media to launch an entire YouTube series.
People ask questions on a particular hashtag and he responds via video.
46) Your Customers are on There

Your brand needs to stay in the eyes of your customers. In this day and age, your
customers are on social media. Regardless of what industry you are in, your
customer base is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, or
another social media platform. Learn more about the demographics of various social
media platforms.

47) Consumers are Checking Out Your Brand on Social Media

68% on consumers check out a companys social media presence before buying
online. If your brand has a small presence on social media, potential customers may
be turned off. As consumers are getting smarter and doing more research before
purchasing, it is important for your brand to have a sound presence throughout the
web.

48) There are People Searching for Products on Social Media

There are people searching for products on social media right now. In fact, 50% of
shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation through a social
media network. While people are talking, tweeting, and searching for products on
social media, your brand has the opportunity to capture their attention.

49) People are Talking About Your Company on Social Media

The average consumer mentions brands 90 times/week. There is no doubt that

people are talking about your brand online. They may be leaving online reviews,
tweeting, or messaging a friend about it on Facebook. Regardless, people will talk
about your brand on social media, which should give you even more of a reason to
be on it.

50) Open Communication (Two-Way Communication)

For the first time in the history of marketing, brands can engage in two-way
communication with consumers. Print, radio, television, and billboards have never
provided brands this benefit. This gives brands the benefit of deepening
relationships with consumers.

51) Its Faster (Than Radio, Commercials, etc)

Social media marketing is much faster than traditional media. It could take months
to plan a television or radio commercial. When investing in print ads, you have to
wait for an available slot and wait for release. Your brand can move quicker than the
competition with social media.

52) Its Real-Time

Your brand can capitalize on real-time events and deliver a relevant message to the
right person at the right time. You can shape a brand-related message around real-
time events as they happen. A famous example would be Arbys famous tweet
during the Grammys when Pharrell wore their hat.
3) Its 24/7

There is no clocking out on social media. You can leverage it all day, every day.
Brands have the opportunity to respond to customers as soon as an issue arises.
With the right social media tools and software, you can receive alerts every time
your brand is mentioned.

54) Decrease Marketing Costs

You can decrease your marketing expenditures by using social media. You can reach
1,000 people for a fraction of the cost of television and billboards. It performs the
same functions of traditional advertising sources and more. By leveraging social
media, you can spend less and gain more results.

55) It Will Help You Beat Your Competition

You can dominate your competitors by outdoing them on social media. Even in
political races, there is significant evidence that social media can give an extreme
advantage over opponents. Through the use of social media, you can gain more
market share and take out your competitors.

56) You Can Go Viral

Television commercials may spark buzz, but with YouTube commercials can go viral.
People share YouTube videos online with friends. Television commercials are difficult
to share. With paid advertising on Television and online video, the scalability of an
online with social sharing gives you a major benefit. Watch this K-Mart commercial
that went viral once placed on YouTube.
57) You Dont Have to be Selly

With traditional and outbound forms of advertising, you only had one shot to make
the sell. The objective was to take your product or service and shove it down
consumers throat. However, today research indicates that consumers dont want to
be sold to, they want to be educated. With social media marketing, you can develop
connections with consumers, build a relationship, educate consumers, and indirectly
sell your product.

58) Younger Audiences Spends Most of Their Time Online

Younger audiences are spending more time online than doing anything else today. In
fact, teenagers spend 27 hours a week online. Older adults are following the trend
as well. 59% of online adults over the age of 65 use Facebook and Skype. As young
adults get older, brands will no other choice but to invest into a strong online and
social media presence.

59) Customer Experience (Richer)

Consumers are connected with hundreds and thousands of people on social media.
Brands are increasingly placing an emphasis on their customer experience
because of the impact it may have on their reputation. Social media can help your
brand promote a positive customer experience through high-quality design, content,
and engagement.

60) Unbiased Ratings and Reviews

The fact that you can collect unbiased ratings and reviews on social media is a
major benefit. Through Yelp, Facebook, and Google reviews, you can gain true
understanding of your companys strengths and weaknesses. Companies who do
not pay attention to customer reviews on social media are jeopardizing their
companys reputation and missing opportunities to grow.

61) Customer Feedback

When launching a new product or idea, you can gain customer feedback through
social media. On social media, you have the ability to ask questions to gauge
interest and feedback on certain topics. You can create surveys and incentivize your
followers to participate. For more on this, read 7 Terrific Ways to Use Social Media
for Customer Feedback.

62) Crisis/Disaster Management

Although no one wants to deal with a company crisis, social media can be used to
properly address and calm the situation. You can acknowledge the concerns of
frustrated individuals, apologize, and find a solution. Your brands social media
manager should know how to manage a social media crisis. Nonetheless, being able
to respond via social media is a major benefit.

63) Answer Customer Questions

Being active on social media and using it to answer customer questions will benefit
your bottom line. Some people call customer service when they have a question
while an increasing amount of people are using social media to do it. If you want
some motivation to use social media and content marketing to answer questions,
read how Marcus Sheridan made $2,000,000 from answering questions.

64) Reduce your Customer Service Staff

You can dramatically reduce your customer service staff and costs by leveraging
social media. Many larger corporations, such as Microsoft, have used Twitter to
reduce customer support costs. They saw more value in listening to what people are
saying about their brand online and responding to people who had issues.

65) Promote Testimonials and Product Reviews

A great way to establish trust on social media is by promoting product reviews and
client testimonials. Buyers will do their research on their options before purchasing
a product or service. By highlighting testimonials and product reviews from your
customers and other sources, you are helping potential buyers do their research.
Social media can be used to help you connect your reviews to interested buyers.
66) Develop Partnerships

Developing sound partnerships can help your business more than you can imagine.
You can amplify your marketing with social media partnerships to gain more
exposure. Examples of social media partnerships could be an exchange of
promotion, content, or even a collaborative board on Pinterest.

67) Build Relationships with Influencers

Influencer marketing is the concept of using influencers to promote your brand to

their large audience of potential buyers. Influencers could be celebrities, journalists,
or bloggers who may have thousands of followers. Regardless of who it is,
influencers are on social media and check it daily. Your brand has access to reach
out to influencers, add value, build relationships, and ultimately leverage their
audience to grow your social media presence.

68) Promote Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the initiative to assess and take
responsibility to improve your community and environment. By showing casing how
your brand is involved in the community, you can win the hearts of consumers,
while making employees feel like their work is worthwhile. Social media can help
you promote how your brand is involved in your community to the people who are
the most engaged with your company.

69) Marketplace Insight

In a recent survey, 65% of firms rated marketplace insight as one of the top benefits
of social media. Your brand can gather valuable insight into your market by utilizing
social media. Some types of insight you can gather include brand mentions, buying
language, direct interaction, consumer needs, and sentiment.

70) Competitive Analysis

The ability to analyze your competitors on social media is a major benefit. You can
look at your competitors and identify key areas for your brand to surpass them. If
they have a low amount of followers and engagement, this could be a key indicator
that you can gain more market share by developing a large presence. If they have a
large and thriving presence on social media, you could target their followers and sell
them on why your brand may be better. For more on this, read How to Create a
Social Media Strategy By Spying Your Competitors.

71) Needs/Demand Analysis (What Customers Want)

By doing some social listening, you can find out what people want, need, or
interested in. On Twitter, you can use advanced Twitter search to monitor what
people are saying about keywords related to your brand. On Pinterest, you can see
what the hottest trends are to develop your brand. It is always important to know
what consumers really want before promoting to them.

72) Customer Insight

Social media tools can be used to drive superior customer insight. Many data
companies and social analytic software can help you distinguish the purchasing
behavior and identify buying personas through social media marketing.
73) Attract and Recruit Employees

Recruiting is an important function of any growing company. You need great internal
personnel in order to succeed. A strong and active social media presence can
attract job seekers to you. Through posting images of employees, work
environment, and company culture, you can develop a pipeline of recruits through
social media. Recent research indicates that over 73% of employers plan to increase
their attention on social media recruiting in upcoming years.

74) Engage Employees and Boost Retention

Employees, just like customers, have hundreds and thousands of connections on

social media. They can be your biggest group of brand advocates on social media.
38% of engaged employees are more likely to share relevant content with
coworkers and customers. Some brands post selfies of employees at work, work
competitions, and acknowledge employee accomplishments on social media. This
use of social media will have a positive impact on employee engagement and
retention.

75) Showcase Company Culture

Showcasing your companys culture on social media can have its benefits as well.
Some employees (and consumers) buy into the people selling the product, not the
product itself. You can use social media to reinforce your brands vision and mission,
commitment to employee development, and share your companys journey.