Social media is one of the biggest topics in business. It seems like every day you’ve got someone saying that TikTok was the reason their business blew up or they owe their success to video marketing. But there are also a lot of businesses that keep trying social media without seeing a lot of results or feel that it’s “not meant for them.”

So what’s the real story? Should you be using social media regularly for your business? Is it more effort than it’s worth? Or do you just need to know how to use it the right way to get your business to the top? Here are 5 ways social media can help you run and grow your business.

Reason #1: Social Media Tells Your Story

So you may be wondering why telling the story of your business is so important. Well we’re glad you asked! You may have heard the phrase, “People make decisions with emotion and justify with logic.” Well that’s absolutely true. If you have your business and a competitor that offers a very similar product or service, people are more likely to choose the one that tells a compelling story with their marketing, showcasing how they helped their customers solve a problem, or move them with a retelling of why they got into business to serve their community.

And one of the great things about social media and marketing in general is that it forces you to step into your customer’s shoes and think about what interests them the most. A ton of businesses think that people should buy their product or service just because they see the value of it. But just because you see the value in your business doesn’t mean that everybody else does. Think about these things when you’re telling your story: (1) Why did we start our business? (2) What problem does our product or service solve? And (3) why do people love working with us?

And even if you don’t have compelling answers to these questions at the beginning, it will help you think about how you can change your business model to be more valuable to your customers and win in the long term!

Reason #2: Social Media Shows Authenticity

One of the biggest pet peeves people have with large companies is they feel out of touch. Or you have to go through 5 different customer service channels or sales people to get a real answer to your questions.

You can immediately differentiate yourself from most of your competition by being (1) available, (2) helpful, and (3) honest. And sometimes that means responding to negative reviews or comments and using it as an opportunity to go above and beyond for that person and turn it into a way for people that have had a similar experience with other companies to see how much more helpful your team is!

Lots of companies can hide behind PR announcements and blanket customer service responses and hope that people just go away. You can use social media to take your customers and prospects seriously and interact with them as people rather than hiding behind your corporate wall.

Reason #3: Social Media Helps You Partner with Other Businesses

Most businesses miss out on opportunities to partner with other businesses because they’re thinking in the short term. Sometimes partnering with another business (even a competitor) can immediately give you a position of “thought leadership” and make you look more established than other companies in your industry. It’s very easy to shy away from any public connections like this because there’s always a certain amount of risk. There are plenty of factors outside of your control since you don’t know how that business operates or what their customer experience may look like. 

Vet your marketing partner opportunities carefully. But when you find others in your industry that you trust, work with them to do a series of educational videos, promote a webinar to educate customers in your industry, repurpose those educational clips on social media (and YouTube Shorts!) and take questions from your audience to show how both of your businesses can help your broader audience solve their problems!

Reason #4: Social Media Helps You Educate Your Customers

The best type or marketing is your customers speaking for you (reviews and testimonials). The second best type of marketing is answering questions that your customers have about your product or service! And chances are, if one of your customers or prospects is asking a question, lots of other people are thinking about the same thing! Whether it’s through graphics, highlighting an FAQ section on your website, or doing a video series on the most common questions you get, you can use social media to educate your customers so by the time you hop on a call with them or do a presentation they are already familiar with what you do, what problem you solve, and how they could probably work with you best.

Reason #5: Social Media Helps You Understand Your Customers

Sometimes social media can be a headache because you realize your customers have different questions that you haven’t thought of yet. Maybe there’s a lot of them that don’t see the value of your product or service. Or maybe they like the concept of what you’re doing but they think that one of your competitors is doing it a lot better than you.

While it may feel painful at the beginning, learning all of these things more quickly through comments, messages, and direct interactions with your audience online can help you pivot fast and learn what it may take other companies months of focus groups and formal research to discover. Don’t forget, social media is just as valuable to your business as a research tool as it is an opportunity to get new customers. The more valuable people perceive your business to be, the easier it will be for you to get customers far into the future.

Conclusion

While it’s always good to consider social media in theory, the best way to get value for your business from social media is trial and error! You won’t get any value if you don’t try, so get out there, start experimenting, outsource when you need to, and learn to make it an integral part of your business!
For other great ways to grow your business check out our other articles here.