It is a common strategy for businesses to use social media platforms to reach out to clients and improve brand image. How one utilizes social media to the best of their needs is determined by their social media marketing strategy. Social media strategies do not necessarily target the number of followers or the number of likes or shares one submission may receive. From the point of view of small business, these are just measures of vanity that do not result in actual sales. The impact of social media strategy on branding is important as social media strategies help define a brand and could also leave a lasting impression on how one brand is perceived and consumed by targeted consumers. In accordance with a report by Social Media Examiner, Eighty-five per cent of marketers who are social media users has no clarity about the social media tools that would work best for their business.
The impact of social media marketing strategy on branding is further discussed below:
1. Enhanced brand recognition and thought leadership
The frequency of your presence on social media is directly proportional to the extent of your brand exposure and recognition as well as the credibility of your company or business or personal brand of product.
Let's take an example of a speaker who wants to secure more gigs for his/her industry's top events and conferences. A meeting planner that starts her/his search on Google will more likely think of him/her (the speaker) as an expert if the speaker is seen in the search results a number of times. This improves the person's chances of being thought of as a leader and being invited to speak. This type of publicity cannot be easily achieved through money. It demonstrates the impact of social media strategy on branding.
2. Building a trustworthy brand through social media
All marketing campaigns mainly focus on building trust. You can earn the customers' trust in your brand through social media engagement. As mentioned before, a strong impact of social media strategy on brandingdoes not rely on an aggressive discount campaign to attract social media followers as this strategy often attracts the wrong type of customers to their business. Although social media campaigns are useful to promote their product among target customers, however relentless self-promotion on social media platforms may come across as spammy. Instead of enhancing the trustworthiness, this act could, in turn, diminish the trustworthiness of the brand.
3. Building brand loyalty through the use of social media
A study by the researchers of the Turkey-based Yaloba University shows how significantly brand loyalty is influenced by social media. The study showed how advantageous campaign with relevant and popular content as well as a cross-platform appearance on social media can earn a customer's loyalty towards a brand. An advantageous campaign is a social media campaign that shows the benefits, values of the product along with its comparative advantage over others. The above-mentioned study also concluded this to be the most effective way to earn brand loyalty through social media. This is a very big social media strategy on branding.
4. Competitive advantage in cold conversions
The impact of social media strategy on Branding is that social media strategies offer a competitive advantage in earning the trust of any visitor coming to you via internet search(instead of coming through referrals or personal contacts). You easily earn the trust of such visitors and convert them to regulars. Let's take for example a potential customer who has after searching the internet narrowed down the field to you and another competitor. It is easier for him to choose you if you have an active and engaging social media presence (by maintaining blogs, Pinterest, LinkedIn or any other channel) as compared to your competitor who has a weaker social media presence.
You may also like:
