It's a big digital world out there, and that can be both good and bad. It's good because you have seemingly endless possible new customers to reach with your organization's messaging. But that also describes the bad side of the digital world – with such a big audience and so many communication channels to choose from, how do you ensure your voice rises above the rest?
That's what makes social media sites such powerful allies for your sales and marketing team. When done right, you deliver a curated message to a curated audience, helping drive engagement metrics and customer conversion rates. In fact, we place so much importance on social media marketing, we want to take a closer look at some of the unique benefits it provides.
Instant Connections with a Large Audience
I know, I just finished saying how a large audience can be problematic. However, assuming you deploy the right techniques and tactics to reach your ideal customer segments – more on that in a bit – the digital world is your sales and marketing oyster, and an instantaneous one at that.
Can you think of another communication channel that allows you to engage your audience in real-time? Sure, people spend a lot of time on email every day, but how many would describe it as instantaneous messaging? Probably not many.
But the very nature of social platforms and algorithms makes them much more agile and timely, allowing you to cast a much wider net that, thanks to the beauty of pictures, video, emojis, hashtags, and more, can immediately capture attention spans and allow you to tell your story.
Target Your Audience through Paid Ads
Social media channels are crowded. In other words, there is a lot of information funneling into a relatively slim amount of digital real estate. As a sales and marketing professional, that means your message runs the risk of getting trapped in an informational bottleneck and, thus, never capturing the attention and engagement you work so very hard to capture.
That's where paid ads can come to the rescue. Just like with organic search, paid ads allow you to cut to the front of the line, skipping over any potential bottleneck and connecting with your ideal customer segments. Granted, paid ads obviously aren't as cost-effective as simple social media posts, so you need to be choosy with what you say and who you say it to.
Still, if you stay within your budget and couple an appealing design with powerful copy and a sound SEO strategy, paid ads can be a real powerhouse to your sales cycle.
Share and Promote Others, Reap the Rewards
No one ever said you have to do all of the heavy lifting on your own. In fact, when it comes to your social media marketing strategy, sharing and promoting others' messages and ideas can create a beneficial boomerang effect that boosts everyone involved.
For example, simply sharing a post from a strategic alliance partner can pay real dividends in the future when they reciprocate. Now, you’re not just reaching your target audience but the partner's as well.
Even better, when you make it a habit to share and promote others, the benefits returning to you can be exponential, helping you improve your social media presence and brand awareness. And don't forget, this technique is absolutely free and requires just a few seconds – literally – of your time.
Leverage User-Generated Content
Building from the previous point, your audience provides another social media content goldmine just waiting for you to tap into. Social media users are clever and savvy, always creating innovative, thought-provoking, often high-quality content that you can leverage to your benefit.
By reposting and sharing such content, you're making your social media marketing far more efficient and simple, reducing your content generation demands without negatively impacting your reach or engagement levels, all while boosting brand recognition. Like the previous point, this is another win-win, where the users also get to enjoy a far greater reach.
Phones Make Sharing Pictures and Videos Easy
We've said it before here at OneDay and we'll say it again – video is the most powerful media format you have at your disposal, far outpacing copy and even photography in the never-ending battle to drive engagement. Still, that doesn't mean other formats don't have their time and place in your sales and digital marketing campaigns, especially when it comes to social media.
Ultimately, a mixture of video and pictures will serve your marketing efforts best, and the smartphone currently within your reach is the key that unlocks all of that power. It only requires a few seconds to take a picture or video, upload it to a social media platform, add some copy, hashtags, and watch the marketing magic happen.
Further, when you use OneDay for your video sales and marketing, you can produce and distribute professional-level, branded video content that conveys the ideal message, tone, and feel. And thanks to your smartphone tools like OneDay, feeding that media frenzy of photo and video-hungry viewers gets easier by the day, something we take endless pride in here at OneDay.