8 Reasons Businesses Need to Use Social Media

If you haven’t noticed, Social Media is mainstream. The fun little sites for teens to share funny memes and keep in touch with friends is now a staple of life.

Businesses who understand the power of Social Sites leverage the marketing and advertising opportunities to their advantage. If you are still not sure Social Media is worth your budget, here are a 8 more reasons you need to be using Social Media to market and advertise your business.

3.196 billion people globally use Social Media, equaling 42% penetration. Over 80% of all Americans have a Social Media account.

In 2015 Facebook influenced 52% of consumers’ online AND offline purchases. Not only are Social updates and ads sending traffic to websites, brick-and-mortar businesses seen an increase in traffic and sales.

Studies have shown that when companies engage with and respond to customers on Social Media those customers can spend 20% to 40% more with that business. It’s no coincidence that 41% of Americans say it’s important that the institutions they engage with have a strong Social Media presence.

78% of people who complain to a business on Twitter expect a response from that business within an hour. 59% of Americans who have a Social Media account agree that customer service via Social Media has made it easier to get questions and concerns resolved. Customers expect that you are using Social Media and monitoring your accounts.

Over 50 million small businesses use Facebook to connect with customers. It is likely your competitors are using Facebook and are reaching their customers as well as YOUR customers. If you aren’t using Facebook to reach your audience, your competition is reaching them.

Facebook provides a targeted ad feature that allows businesses to show ads to customers who have visited your website. Around 2% to 6% of website visitors make a purchase during their first visit to a site. Retargeting ads to show to those people increases the potential conversion rate. Additionally, use a general ad set to reach the other 94% to 98% and leave no stone unturned.

93% of Pinterest users are using the platform to make purchases or to plan their future purchases. Engagement rates on Pinterest are on the low side, but 25% of all website referral traffic. Pinterest can be a very useful tool to generate sales.

71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on referrals from their friends on Social Media and 81% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by their friends’ Social Media updates. Word-of-Mouth referrals are now Tweeted, Posted, Pinned, Snapped, and Updated.