There’s a common saying in this day and age – “If you don’t have social media, you don’t exist.” It sounds dramatic, but it’s true. What’s more, when we’re discussing one of the biggest and most effective ways to advertise your business, products, and yourself in 2022, can you afford not to utilise it?

Over the years, social media has come a long way. Initially, it was created as a way to connect with friends, family and strangers on the internet. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the world we know now would struggle to exist without it.

72% of business executives use data from their social media profiles to make decisions within their company. How businesses use social media can be incredibly effective and massively impact the way consumers view their brand. In fact, around 55% of consumers discover brands through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and many more. Having a social media presence allows your brand to connect with consumers across the globe and ensure that your campaigns are reaching your target audience.

Businesses can thrive on social media, given they have the right marketing team behind them. There’s an array of ideas that can be used to make your brand more interesting, exciting and engaging for your audience. The potential for a brand across social media is endless when you have the creativity and determination for success.

How businesses use social media can differ massively. There are a number of different techniques or approaches you can use to grow your business. Here are just a few:

Brand Awareness – Using social media without the intent to directly sell or guide people into using your services, and instead, to simply make your target audience aware of your brand. By doing this, you’re letting your customer discover what your business stands for and is expert in. Brand awareness isn’t a tactic to generate leads, it’s designed to gain you something which is much more valuable – brand positioning, recognition, and trust which will lead to conversions, and word of mouth recommendations.

With brand awareness, you have free-reign to promote yourself, your brand and your products without burdening your content with a requirement to convert. A lot of businesses will use this technique to gain a following online and leave a lasting impression, in a user’s mind, so when they come to need a product or service like yours, you’ll be top of their minds

Selling Products/Services – This is the most alluring part of how businesses use social media, because the wins can be so significant. Brands and companies utilise their following and platform to promote their products and services, through images, promotional videos, offers, and many other tactical choices. As simple as it sounds, this approach is not always the easiest.

Having the right team behind your brand is essential for your business to thrive across social media. Creativity is what will help you stand out from the rest, and the more interesting and authentic you are online, the better chance you have of outshining competitors.

While there are only a limited number of ways to deliver your message across social media, the message itself, and the quality and shareability of the content you create, becomes a lot more important. Due to the frequency of content required across social, a strategy forces your creatives to think hard about their work to make their content count, and ensures a nice ratio of different content types. Give it thought. Give it some strategy.

Building A Community – Depending on how your business works, building a community can be a positive way to create relationships and connections all over the globe. You can develop positive relationships with customers and businesses across the world, allowing you to collaborate, and share ideas and advice with each other, to positively impact your company’s success.

When looking into a product or service, you’ll likely agree that if you can see an active presence on social media, in which the brand engages with their audience and has frequent contact with other businesses, you are more likely to trust them over a business that doesn’t. In fact, statistics show that 78% of online users are more willing to purchase from a brand after having a positive experience with them on social media.

How businesses use social media effectively isn’t just down to what images, videos and ideas you have, it’s the time you dedicate to building your account and interacting with your audience that will single you out from the rest.

Having the right marketing team behind your brand is essential for success. Social media is an ever-changing world. There are new updates and trends every single day, so it can be incredibly difficult to follow, which is why it’s so much easier to have a helping hand.

Social media is brilliant. It allows us to communicate with our consumers, other businesses, and establish a desired image of our brand. Over the years, it’s only grown, meaning that more and more people are using it, both brands and consumers alike. Take a look at yourself a decade ago and compare it to now.

How has social media made an impact on your life and business?