- March 14, 2024
- Posted by: Salil .
- Category: Blogs
Social media has become a critical part of our lives. It has gone beyond being a platform to communicate with friends and family and has become a tool companies use to augment business growth. Social media lead generation companies are helping businesses overcome social media marketing challenges and leverage social media to generate high-quality leads.
According to a report by Forbes, approximately 4.9 billion people are using social media globally in 2024. This is a huge number, expected to grow to 5.85 billion users by 2027. Do you know an average person spends 145 minutes daily on social media? These social media statistics are a driving force for marketers. They can understand the global reach of social media and effectively use it to connect with their target audience. Businesses must use social media’s humongous reach and potential to build brand visibility and enhance it to attract prospects and increase sales.
Social media marketing (SMM) has become a preferred method for lead-generation and promoting a brand to attract customers. According to Semrush, 2023, social media and community building are the top priority for 52% of marketers. Marketing on social media helps companies build brand awareness and understand their target audience. Curating and posting high-quality, relevant content, integrating the right social media marketing elements helps businesses connect with their prospects and acquire customers cost-efficiently. This blog will discuss why social media marketing is essential for companies and the latest trends you can follow in 2024.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is marketing and building brand awareness about your brand on websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. Social media marketing is an apt method for connecting with your customers daily, understanding their preferences, and grabbing their feedback to generate high-quality leads. B2B companies can create a pipeline of ready-to-buy leads by nurturing them on social media. Companies must share engaging content and gain customers’ and prospects’ attention with regular content posting activities. SMM can take many forms, such as regular posts with educational and informative content, product launch information, quizzes, surveys, and infographics. It allows businesses to play around with visual content, including videos, and attract the target audience to their brand. Remember how TikTok revolutionized the way people viewed content? It made short videos phenomena and now Instagram marketing allows businesses to tap the audience’s interest with interactive short videos.
In a nutshell, social media marketing is about promoting your business on social networking sites to enhance your presence, build trust among the target audience, and eventually persuade them to do business with you.
Read here to learn about more social media marketing trends
Why is Social Media the preferred method for lead generation?
- Cost-effectiveness: Social media marketing is a highly cost-efficient method of promoting and building brand awareness. Small and medium-sized businesses can invest in content creation and strategically distribute content on different social media platforms. Paid social media is equally cost-effective. Whether you promote on Facebook or LinkedIn, paid advertising starts at less than $ 1/ day. It’s prudent to invest in social media marketing and reap the benefits of its global reach and acquire customers with cost-efficiency.
- Online Visibility: Social media is a great tool to build brand awareness and keep the momentum going with regular updates and posts. Here are some valuable statistics published by Forbes: 84% of people aged 18 to 29 and 81% between 30 and 49 use at least one social media website. The percentage in the 50 -64 range is 73%, and in the 65-plus groups, it is 45%. So, people of every age group are actively involved on social media. Here are some interesting numbers about businesses using social media. 77% of companies use social networking sites to connect with their customers. 44% of small businesses use social media for brand awareness, while 41% use social media to drive revenue. So, companies must invest in SMM and connect with their prospects who are already using social media networking sites.
- Increase website traffic: You can also increase website traffic with an increased presence on social media. Direct traffic from social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to your website and boost organic reach. Again, it’s a cost-effective way to increase sales by attracting prospects to your website- your online store by leveraging social networking sites and letting them explore your offerings.
- Build Trust: Customer trust is one of the most critical factors that help businesses scale rapidly, provided they meet customers’ expectations. Social media platforms are an effective tool to evoke trust among prospects and customers with regular updates about your products, answering your customers’ questions, commenting on users’ posts, sharing user-generated content, and building rapport with them. It lets prospects and customers know you are empathetic and keen to solve their problems. It’s an excellent way to attract customers and retain their trust in the brand, which benefits the business in the long run.
- Customer Advocacy: User-generated content on social media websites can do wonders for your business. Let customers become your brand ambassadors by encouraging them to comment and share your content. Nothing works better than customer advocacy. Social media is a platform where you can get validation from your customers and showcase it proudly to other customers. It attracts prospects and builds credibility. Customer advocacy is built through continuous reinforcement through brand-building exercises on social media.
So, what does social media marketing have in store for you in 2024? Let’s check out some popular trends in SMM.
Popular Social Media Marketing Trends in 2024
- Short-form videos are here to stay: You thought they were a fad; no, they are here to stay! According to Forbes, short videos of less than a minute successfully capture the attention of 66% of consumers. 34% of consumers prefer the more genuine nature of the shorter form of the content. These videos are 2.5 times more engaging than the longer videos! Semrush 2023 has also revealed that short-form videos lead the statistics in content performance at 43%, while company/product videos and customer success videos claim a stake of 33% and 32%, respectively.
- SEO is crucial for social media channels: SEO should not be limited to increasing website traffic. Instead, it should also focus on improving the visibility of social media content. Companies should focus on increasing the discoverability of their content, optimizing it with relevant keywords and hashtags. Whether in the feed or the search, the content must be searchable so your target audience finds your content quickly.
- Authentic Content: It’s vital to post original content to boost your presence on social media. It’s good to leverage AI, but integrating the personal touch can help the brand elevate its presence and create a great bond with its customers.
- Employee Advocacy Content: Your employees can contribute to boosting your brand image and building brand awareness. They can share your company’s content, activities, value, and experience with your brand to create trust on social media.
- Set Realistic Goals: Social media marketing is a powerful tool to enhance a brand’s awareness, attract prospects, build thought leadership, and more. However, businesses need to set clear goals with their social media marketing activities. SMM is a consistent effort that solidifies a brand’s presence. It should align with a business’s long-term goals and vision. Companies must set measurable and realistic goals such as an increase in the number of followers, improved in-store sales/online sales, and increased ROI, clicks per campaign, shares, and comments. Businesses should analyze them collectively to ensure that they meet the business’s long-term goals.
- Focus on the shares: Do you know shares are the real engagement metric that shows the impact of your content and post? It’s exciting to have comments, followers, and likes, but it’s a sign of credibility if people are willing to share your content and updates on their accounts. It means they believe in what you say and further endorse your thoughts by sharing them. It’s a massive win for your brand as you build trust with social media marketing.
Outsourcing SMM Services to social media lead generation companies
Outsourcing social media marketing services can prove to be a game-changer for any business. Companies can post educational and informative content on social networking sites and build thought leadership. Every business is consistently building brand awareness with social media, and so should you. Hire an expert social media lead generation company to build credibility, increase visibility, and boost sales.
About Markable Solutions
Social media marketing requires consistent efforts that involve high-quality content creation, awareness of the latest trends, and a dedicated team. Markable Solutions is a famous B2B marketing and one of the best social media lead generation companies with experts who understand your business and curate content that will resonate with prospects and customers. Boost your social media presence with the help of experts who’ll popularize your brand voice and help your business connect with your target audience. Contact us for more details, and our experts will reach out to understand your requirements and offer the best solution.