Do you know where you can find your customers at any time in one place? Online, of course! And most of them are actively using two or three social networks. If you want to build an effective inbound marketing strategy, you should consider making your brand presence on social media. Why? Find out in the text below.
Let’s begin with the question of whether social media is inbound or outbound marketing?
Social media allows businesses to connect with their customers. When it comes to its many advantages, using the opportunity to present yourself as a customer-focused brand is the most significant one.
This means that the right social media marketing strategy will always fall under the category of inbound marketing because it is focused on leveraging the ability to reach your audience in a way that resonates with them.
What is the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is the process of attracting visitors before they are ready to buy your products and services.
Before your potential customers decide to buy something, up to 63% of them begin their buying journeys online by searching for relevant content to meet their needs or solve a problem, according to Oberlo.
Therefore, your content should explain how your products or services will solve their problems, answer key questions, or meet their needs.
Unlike Inbound marketing, Outbound marketing involves sending a message to a large number of people in the hopes of generating sales.
The idea behind the outbound strategy is that the more people your message reaches, the greater the return. Direct mail, events, billboards, cold calling, newspapers, radio, pay-per-click advertising, and email outreach are all examples of outbound marketing. They are designed to interrupt people to get their attention.
Source: aimstyle.com – Inbound vs. Outbound marketing
With inbound strategies, you can engage with a much larger audience who are easier to qualify as prospects or leads than with outbound strategies.
A great starting point on what is inbound marketing and how it can help your business is our blog post which explains this topic in detail.
Social media is very important for your inbound marketing strategy. Why? Let’s break it down!
Social media provides the ideal opportunity to engage with your audience because people spend the vast majority of their online time on social networks, but the success of inbound marketing depends on how you use it, according to Statista.
Here are some of the intriguing numbers from the most popular social networks:
With 2.8 billion active users, Facebook is the most popular social network reaching more than half of all social media users (59%). 48.5% of B2B decision-makers conduct research on Facebook. It is thus the most popular traditional social network for B2B research, with only YouTube coming in ahead at 50.9%. When marketing to a business audience, don’t overlook Facebook.
With 2.3 billion active users and 720,000 hours of video uploaded daily, Youtube is the second most popular social network. As the value of video content becomes more apparent, an increasing number of businesses are turning to video. According to statistics, 62% of companies use YouTube to post video content, and 90% of people say YouTube is where they find new brands or products (Oberlo, 2021).
Source: Most popular social networks worldwide as of October 2021, ranked by number of active users
Instagram now has 1.4 billion active users, and 81% of those who use the platform say they use it to research products and services. As a result, if you’re not on Instagram, you could be missing out on valuable sales opportunities.
TikTok has quickly risen to become one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. It has grown to over 1 billion users since its launch in 2016, with the brand estimating that the same 1 billion are active each month. Tik Tok has implemented an effective algorithm that shows users trending videos relevant to their interests, making it simple to create relevant, on-brand content for your industry without conducting extensive research.
Twitter has 463 million users who send 200 billion tweets each year. it is used by 59% of users regularly to get news. In the last 12 months, 82% of B2B content marketers used Twitter for organic content marketing. For this Twitter business statistic, Twitter is tied with Facebook. Only LinkedIn is higher, with a score of 96%.
LinkedIn has more than 660 million registered users, with 303 million active monthly. It may appear insignificant in comparison to the previously mentioned social networks. Still, the following facts will astound you: 61 million “senior-level influencers” use it, LinkedIn has more than 10,000 B2B software Product Pages, 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”, 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing, and 33% of B2B decision makers use it to research purchases.
Now that we’ve seen some of the statistics behind the top social networks, let’s unfold five main reasons why social media is important for your inbound marketing strategies:
1. Social media connects you with your target audience and drives content creation
Customers can contact you more easily using social media. What is your go-to source for information when you have a question or a problem with customer service? You almost certainly use the internet, and the same goes for your clients.
Using social media to build customer relationships is all about providing the value that today’s audience expects. Your target audience will want to connect with you if you can provide relevant and informative content. They want someone who can relate to them and understands their needs. You’ll build an even stronger connection with your audience if you interact with them by responding to comments or criticism in a positive, problem-solving manner.
One of the most important benefits of incorporating social media into your inbound marketing strategy is the information and feedback you receive from customers you want to attract. By using social media in this manner, we have access to many content ideas. Social media, online review sites, Q&A, and other platforms where your customers create content or spend their time, can provide you with an endless source of ideas for creating the type of content most relevant to your audience.
2. Social media makes your brand present, relevant and helps you establish authority by promoting content
You can use your insights to educate your audience about the topic of their interest — related to your business, product or services you offer, and what you believe in. An audience will quickly determine whether or not you are the right fit for their needs by looking at the content you post, the topics you discuss, and the overall tone you use on your social media accounts. On social networks, 86 percent of consumers prefer a brand personality that is authentic and honest.
Consider having a clear idea of what type of content you want to produce. If you publish interesting and engaging content that attracts qualified visitors, in turn, they will share or comment on your content, instantly increasing your reach to an even larger audience.
As your audience grows, so will the strength of your brand’s social media presence and authority.
3. Social media inspires new business ideas
Using social media can have some immense indirect benefits for business development. When you engage with your audience, you will generate plenty of new ideas and directions for your brand.
If you don’t have these insights, you are missing out on an opportunity to expand your business or to reach a new market segment. By listening to your audience and asking them questions, you can find new ways to promote your brand or expand your service offerings. Based on this valuable information, you may even discover that you need to change your business’s direction. You’ll never run out of new ideas if you pay attention to what your customers say.
4. Social media naturally improves SEO
There is a strong correlation between a social media presence and SEO impact, even though social media use is not a factor that affects rankings on search engines. Using social media to interact and promote your content increases the amount of exposure your business gets. The increased exposure and relevant content, together with your other digital promotion activities, enable the expansion of reach even beyond your target audience.
For example, influencers or experts can link to your content when your social media marketing reaches a certain level of authority and credibility. Increased authority from being recognized by high-ranking influencers or experts organically boosts your SEO.
5. Social media is a valuable research tool for your business
Social media insights and data as a research tool are essential to understanding what your customers want.
The dashboards of the platforms you use are excellent demographic and psychographic data sources. For example, you can learn about your potential business customer’s industries, roles, and interests in addition to their location and other demographic insights. Use these insights to fine-tune your content and successfully reach out to more people who have similar profiles.
You can also use social media to put content to the test and do a little research of your competitors or different brands in your industry:
Is sending video messages or links to blog articles more effective to your audience?
What are your industry’s and customer base’s hot topics?
What are your competitors doing?
What are the top trending hashtags in your industry right now?
Your business can be more successful by getting valuable insights from social media as a research tool.
So, what’s the conclusion?
If you want your business to be present when and where your target audience is looking, you need to use inbound marketing. The sooner you get started, the more quickly you will see your business grow.
The advantages of social media for business can be used in different ways, especially as part of an inbound marketing strategy. Since inbound marketing aims to attract your customers and create a kind of connection with them, social media does exactly the same – it connects you with your target audience and drives content creation.
Plus, social media makes your brand present, relevant and naturally improves SEO. It enables you to promote your website content on social media and increase the amount of exposure your business gets.
And remember, social networks are social platforms. People usually don’t go there to buy something. They use social media to have fun or to find information and inspiration. Brands need to adapt their content to the entertaining role of social media and find authentic and innovative ways to show off to their followers.
If you need help with social media or if you’re at the beginning of your inbound path and need help on the way to its implementation, don’t hesitate to contact us!
