Social Media: The Unusual Magical Art That Changed our Lives and Communication!
Magic is real; it is not limited to novels and movies. How automobiles sent horses and carts to exile in the history of transportation is magical. How the E-mail mode of communication sent Fax Machines to their grave is such a magical art of 1971.
Here is an excellent story of a magical technological invention we live through today in the 21st century called Social Media. The birth of social media disrupted what communication meant. Social Media transformed our lives and made us better connected with friends and families, even with complete strangers.
Social Media has become a massive source of news, entertainment, political discussions, finding influencers for business marketing, advertising products and services, etc. So if you see the #SMDay hashtag trending on your social media platforms today, June 30, know that this is what we are celebrating and is indeed worth it.
Isn’t it?
Social Media has transformed our social lives and strengthened activism and the demand for justice, as seen in some massive protests worldwide. How some of these protests started with a video going viral, followed by a hashtag trending, and then people took to the streets with signs and billboards.
If this isn’t magic, then I beg you to define what it is.
Social Media didn’t stop there; one of the significant impacts of social media is seen in the business sector. Social media has strengthened businesses across the world and has been a major backbone for e-commerce platforms.
E-commerce platforms leverage the attention on social media and use this to market their products to us. Most of these marketing campaigns are well-targeted because social media platforms have demographics and statistics, that allow businesses to laser beam on who they want to reach.
Just like a mother knows her child, social media platforms know some of us intimately, perhaps more intimately than some feel comfortable with. They know
· when we are happy or sad just by our posts.
· when and where we go on vacations by the things we say and the pictures/videos we post.
· when Jamie got into a new job.
· that Linda got married last week.
It doesn’t end here; social media platforms have access to our device’s locations, meaning they know where we work, where we live and the hotels we visit the most.
To the average person, the amount of information that Social Media Platforms have is both magical and scary.
To business owners like me, this is a huge opportunity.
A veritable gold mine… And mining this gold can result in increased brand awareness, more customers and ultimately more revenue for your business.
How do you mine this gold? Keep reading.
The traditional business day is 9-5. But most small business owners and lots of corporate leaders put in more hours.
The COVID-19 pandemic shift.
During the pandemic, it was incredibly important for businesses to allow as many workers as possible to work from home. Most employees I know reported working more hours from home. After all, they didn’t have to spend time dressing, fixing lunches or commuting.
With the worldwide lockdown, there was no more socializing by the water cooler or the break room or after hours at restaurants, bars, etc. Social media was literally the only social outlet many people had.
Some realized they could start their own business and make money online through different social media platforms.
Regardless of the size of the business, marketing is essential. You can leverage the immense opportunity social media platforms provide. Utilizing social media and having an online presence allows you to promote your business and make money online, all day, every day – 24/7.
As we celebrate Social Media Day today, I will take you through some practical steps that will give your business some leverage in case you’ve not been using it.
Can Businesses Leverage Social Media For Growth?
Most people use social media every day. It’s how people of all ages, connect with people all over the world. And how we find information and do evaluations before we make decisions or make purchases.
Based on public statistics, an average social media user spends 144 minutes online daily. Imagine if you can steal 10 minutes out of this 144 minutes to pitch your business and offers to prospects daily.
If you successfully do this to one prospect daily, imagine you can do it for more than 100 – 1,000 potential clients without any extra energy.
Let me break it down – if you want to acquire new clients via cold calling, the highest you can do in a day successfully is to talk with 500 prospects a day. Note, I didn’t say “dial 500 numbers”; I speak of the people that pick up the calls. Of course, the number is much less if you’re doing physical, face-to-face cold calling.
Reaching 500 people in a day, without the internet and social media is virtually impossible! But now you can. Social Media is powerful.
What are the Best Platforms to grow your business?
Facebook: This is the king of social media, for most businesses. Facebook / Meta has over 2.93
billion users. That is more than the population of the two most populated countries combined.
With Facebook, you can use your personal profile or a Facebook Page to talk about your product and services. Using a dedicated Facebook Page comes with the advantage of advertising your products to millions of prospects.
Below is an example
You might have come across contents like this. It means that the company or business owner specifically paid Facebook to show the picture, video, or product to thousands or millions of their users.
With this advantage, you can consciously target the type of people you want your advertisement to be shown to.
For example
Airlines could show the ad to folks that travel frequently.
A bakery would advertise to people that will be having birthdays or anniversaries in the coming days or weeks.
These are just a few out of the many things achievable with Facebook for business owners. Everything above is also possible for platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Tiktok.
As a business owner, especially B2C (Business to consumers), you should leverage these listed social media platforms to advertise your products or services.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn has some of the same capabilities as other platforms, but it excels if you are targeting or interested in connecting with other businesses or professionals.
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Since LinkedIn is the best social media for professionals, it has more professional, business and career-building-related contents on it.
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LinkedIn is a platform that many recruiters use to get suitable candidates for employment. And it’s a great platform for job seekers to find and research potential employers.
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It is also important to know that many business to businesses (B2B) enterprises leverage LinkedIn to get qualified prospects for sales pitches.
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LinkedIn is so deliberate about making life easy for businesses or sales representatives that it has a “Sales Navigator” feature. With Sales Navigator, you can further research prospects to know how qualified they are for your offer and probably close them as clients or high-probability leads.
The BIG LinkedIn Mistake:
Most people on LinkedIn are open to doing business. But it is social media. The big mistake many make is to immediately start pitching, without any attempt to develop relationships.
The general rule for selling: people buy from and do business with people they know, like and trust. Immediate pitching is a big turn-off, they don’t know you.
The Truth; Using Social Media as a Business Owner can be overwhelming sometimes:
Managing social media is a big job.
To hire a social media manager for your business, be prepared to pay a salary of as much as $110k per year depending on the job requirements.
To also answer the question: Why Celebrate Social Media Day?
Experience has shown that companies can make back 10 times ROI on the social media manager’s salary. That’s a whopping 1000%!
Hopefully, your business provides services and products that many people want. You may be experiencing less than spectacular revenue growth because you’re not fully maximizing social media or not using it at all.
A business without a continuous influx of qualified leads will die in no time.
That’s the problem we solve. We can take the burden off your shoulders and start sending you those qualified leads.
We specialize in providing a premium done-for-you lead generation service for people on LinkedIn looking to do business with other LinkedIn members.
And we also offer social media and other digital marketing services.
Let me help you today, even as we celebrate World Social Media Day, this June 30th.
Let’s chat. Click https://calendly.com/sandranoble/15min to get more information.
Happy World Social Media Day once again!