Many marketers say that inbound marketing produces measurable results. Effective social media and inbound marketing are proven to be helpful in increasing inbound sales. But, you may not be investing enough in these marketing methods.
You can add more revenue to your business with an inbound marketing plan to boost sales. Keep reading for 10 reasons why you need to integrate social media marketing into your plan.
1. Connect With Your Customers
More than half of the world’s population uses social media as a communication tool. And the average customer spends an average of 2 hours 24 minutes on social media per day.
The massive use of social is one simple explanation of why it blends with an inbound marketing plan. Social media puts your business closer to potential inbound leads.
Many customers use these platforms for networking, interactions, entertainment, and news update. If your marketing plan is focused on their interests, you could easily capture their attention.
Cracking the social media inbound marketing code is about realizing these platforms aren’t about selling. They are about socializing and connecting.
Your social media marketing goals should focus on the three pillars of inbound marketing—attract, engage and excite. Create valuable content, address your audience’s pain points and empower your customers.
When your followers find success, they’ll tell other people and share your content. This is how you attract new leads and grow your customer base with social media. You will build your following if you focus on relationships rather than selling.
2. Maximize Content Marketing
Social media marketing allows you to use different platforms. The average social media user has 7.6 active accounts. This gives you more opportunities to interact with inbound leads. Plus, each social media platform brings a unique inbound marketing opportunity.
You can share different types of content to cater to the needs of your entire audience. For example, Twitter will help you keep your audience updated with the latest news. Facebook and Instagram are suitable for real-time videos, images, and mini-blogging.
Researching your audience’s social behaviors is the key to generating more inbound sales. Your ideal customer is not on every social media platform. Find out their favorite content and platforms to best align your marketing strategy.
Build an inbound marketing strategy that helps you leverage your customer’s channels. Share different forms of content to drive engagements and get into their minds.
Content marketing is a to-go tactic in social media marketing. Content marketing also helps you empower your followers with relevant information.
3. Save on Marketing Costs
Controlling costs is a priority if you’re looking to build a sustainable business. You want to ensure every investment is sensible and likely to generate positive ROIs.
Inbound social media marketing is an affordable way to increase inbound leads. When you market on social media, it allows you to share your content without paying a dime. With a proper inbound marketing plan, people can easily find your posts.
Once you figure out how to rank high on Google and navigate organic social media marketing, you have a perfect combo to cut your marketing costs. SEO and inbound social media marketing are the most affordable digital marketing strategies.
But you may fail to generate a significant ROI with social media marketing. Increasing competition, changing algorithms, and lacking skills can hurt your performance. Identify strategies that will help lower your costs while generating more inbound leads.
Create high-quality content to supercharge your inbound marketing strategy. Content marketing produces 3X more leads than outbound marketing. Focus on authentic, transparent, and friendly lead nurturing tactics.
Share more user-generated content such as testimonials and reviews to build brand trust. Reviews and testimonials can help prove your products or services are awesome. 72% of customers say reviews increase their trust in a business.
4. Generate Social Proof
As mentioned, social proof is an integral part of inbound marketing. Social proof will help you show that your product is credible and effective as per your promise.
Social media marketing is one of the best ways of gathering social proof. An effective inbound sales strategy will help generate more user data for social proof.
The first form of social proof is likely to come from their interactions with your brand. If your posts attract more shares and likes, potential inbound marketing leads may think you’re popular.
According to Psychology, popularity is good. And the more interactions you generate, the more leads you’ll gain. The fear of missing out is real and people will often follow the herd.
Other forms of social proof from social media include user content, reviews, testimonials, and brand mentions. Experts may endorse your products. And happy customers may say something positive about the product.
5. Building Brand Communities
An easy way to make inbound marketing effective is to build brand communities. A band of loyal customers online can help you generate more mentions and boost your brand.
Brand communities can serve as your online spokespeople or ambassadors. They can help share your content marketing assets which further helps to expose your brand.
Some of the best brand marketing and product development ideas come from brand communities. Brand community members are usually free to share ideas and critique products. This helps to generate a flow of information that enhances inbound marketing efforts.
Smart marketers gather content marketing ideas from user sentiments and comments. These comments can help to align content with customer needs. This form of content is highly likely to be more engaging.
An effective social media marketing strategy will help you create a loyal community that champions your brand. Many social media platforms allow you to create groups that can bring together people who support your cause.
As an entrepreneur, you may have a group of passionate who’ve bought into your brand values. Interact with them to help you grow your social media brand communities. A few passionate customers who can easily engage with others can become your most lethal inbound marketing tool.
Make sure you nurture your community to help it grow. Encourage open discussions to foster a free flow of opinions. Use member reactions and feedback as a reality check for your brand.
6. Generate Interest in Your Company
Social media grows at an annual growth rate of 12%. In 2021, social media grew at an average rate of 13.5 new users every second. This growth suggests that social media still has huge potential for your business.
Social media is a vast estate that is growing every year. It offers you an incredible opportunity to put your content where your potential prospect will find it.
One of the roles of inbound marketing is to help new people understand your business. This is possible if your content has a wide reach. The more people you reach, the easier lead generation becomes.
Beyond that, creating engaging and entertaining content can give your business immense exposure. More shares, likes, and comments can make your posts more visible and help attract more new inbound leads.
If your content creation team can develop top-notch content, you have a chance to attract huge attention. Engaging images, short videos, and snackable posts can help you generate new inbound leads and close more sales.
Social media marketing strategies like contests and giveaways can boost inbound leads. The hype and the desire to participate in contests will help you generate more interest in your brand.
7. Fosters Influencer Marketing
Social media is one of the top places to find influencers in the digital era. Celebrities and niche experts, the leading influencers, hugely influence social media audiences.
A combination of influencer marketing and inbound marketing makes one of the perfect audience targeting strategies. 90% of marketers believe influencer marketing is an effective form of marketing.
The real influencer is highly in-demand due to their natural ability to connect with audiences. And owing to this ability, they can play a significant role in the awareness and engagement phases of inbound marketing. 80% of customers buy a product after a recommendation by an influencer.
People see influencers as fellow customers so they find it easier to trust and identify with them. So, when you want to engage them, it’s more convenient to do so through an influencer with an active audience.
Sometimes influencer marketing is a source of inbound marketing content. Niche influencers can create authentic and relevant content to help you resonate with your prospects. The perfect influencer has the authority and knowledge to influence your audience.
Influencers have an enthusiastic and active audience on social media. So, you must consider them in your social media inbound marketing plans. Research to find those whose values and tone fit your brand marketing communication style.
8. Enhance Customer Service
Your inbound marketing efforts can be in vain if you don’t figure out how to streamline customer service. Customers will choose to not do business with your company because of poor customer service.
Bad customer service ruins your brand image and it can kill your business. Frustrated customers do not just leave but also share their negative experiences with friends online.
One negative tweet could cause older customers to remember and share their bad experiences. A 5-star rating could plummet to a one-star rating in a few minutes.
The beauty of social media gives you a plethora of options to enhance customer service. You have live chat and messaging options to respond to customer issues and customers as soon as possible. Some customers, especially millennials, prefer live chat customer service owing to higher speeds.
Social media tools can track engagements in real-time and improve your responsiveness. As a result, you will improve user experience, attend to customers in time and convert more leads. Also, consider making cyber safety a factor in your customer experience that supports quality customer service.
9. Build Thought Leadership
As a business owner, establishing thought leadership can give you an edge in your industry. People in your niche have a voice they can trust and respect. Thought leadership is all about sharing your expertise and helping your audience.
Thought leadership is also a key pillar in content and inbound marketing. Customers expect valuable, genuine, and authentic resources to help them make correct decisions. And this is where thought-leadership comes in.
Thought leadership allows you to establish authority and credibility in your niche. It also helps you build trust and attract more inbound leads. Social media is an effective platform for showing thought-leadership.
LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are some of the best platforms to establish thought leadership. These platforms house industry leaders and key decision-makers in entire industries. Create a professional profile and share expertise to become a thought leader.
You also have to join relevant groups and forums to build a name as a thought leader— network with like-minded fellows. Then share your perspectives and answer questions to build a strong personal brand.
10. Generate Traffic and Increase Leads
Social media is a key ingredient in a lead generation recipe. User engagement on social media can help you generate traffic and increase your leads.
Social media has progressed into a platform that takes months to generate many leads. Changes in user behavior and algorithms and the high competition call for a well-planned strategy.
Social media organic marketing success takes a combination of different pull marketing strategies. There should be some cohesiveness between your website design, SEO, email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing.
Once your key marketing strategies begin working as a unit, you’ll see more traffic, leads, and conversions. Besides, building social proof, brand communities, thought leadership, and maximizing influencer marketing will help you increase inbound leads.
Do You Have a Social Media Inbound Marketing Plan?
As you can see, social media is a great opportunity to generate more inbound sales. A well-established social media inbound marketing plan can help you boost your business.
An inbound marketing agency can help you put a strategy in place to meet your business goals. Contact us today to discuss how to integrate inbound marketing into your strategy.
