Why Social Media Is Essential to Your Business

Every business needs a social media presence. The many social platforms serve as a multi-purpose tool in helping businesses and brands achieve success. A few of the benefits to implementing social strategies includes helping businesses directly reach new and current customers in real time, increase brand awareness, as well as boost sales and leads.

Currently, more than three billion people use social media on a daily basis and that number is only growing. By 2025, the social media industry is expected to increase to 4.41 billion users with the average person currently spending approximately 2.5 hours a day on social media. As the industry continues to expand, leveraging its power is essential to overall success.

Just like hiring a PR firm to handle your publicity is essential to your growth, so is having a digital footprint and that means implementing social strategies into your long-term goals because a business without social media is well, just bad for business.

That’s why utilizing different social media platforms should be an integral part of a PR company’s toolbox. They work hand in hand and together PR processes and social media plans  can help amplify news and messages, share information to a much wider audience and connect with people on a greater scale.

The scope of public relations and the way in which we reach out to consumers has evolved beyond the traditional press release. Media connections and the relationships we cultivate with key players are essential to sharing our client’s message but we now have an additional tool we can utilize.

Whether it’s a platform like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, the goal remains the same and that is to take a client’s messaging and gain the most visibility as possible.

When forecasting the overall goal of a client, the end-game is always the same, to elevate their level of success through the use of various public relations strategies and that includes adopting and adapting to new technologies.

Social media platforms are a huge part of the digital space and implementing them into every day business interactions plays a big part in a client’s future success. By including social media into a client’s long-term PR plan, you’re opening up more opportunities to reach their overall PR goals.

In a study conducted by Business Wire, 84% of B2B buying decisions are largely impacted by social media. And as the industry grows, this number is likely to become even greater. It’s no wonder PR firms are taking advantage of the power social media has on consumers and implementing social strategies into their overall plans.

If you’re still wondering why social media is an important PR tool, here are a few reasons why:

●      Social media allows business to reach a much wider audience.

●      Shared messages can be conveyed in a conversational tone and open up a dialogue with an audience.

●      Provides a personal touch which in turn helps to build relationships.

●      With real-time messaging, social media allows users to share content immediately.

●      Analytics and insights allow businesses to measure their reach/performance.

At JMG PR, we implement a social media plan into our client’s overall long-term PR plan. By doing so, we are also laying down a foundation for journalists to take notice of what our clients have to say and what they are sharing in the digital space. 

These days, journalists want to ensure the people, brands, or companies they plan to collaborate with in some form or another have a strong and active presence on social media. Along with looking at a company’s website and browsing through employee profiles, they’re also checking your social pages. If a journalist is considering featuring you in a thought leadership piece and you lack a strong social media presence, it can have an impact on their decision.

Without a strong and active presence, some journalists may be leery of doing the story or utilizing you as a thought-leader because they wonder if the company or brand is really doing what they’re being pitched.

While they’re looking for recent activity, they’re also focusing on what you’re sharing and how often you are engaging on your social media platform. Posting and ghosting is not a good look. Whenever comments, questions, or feedback is given, you must engage. Not only does this help to cultivate and strengthen relationships, it shows journalists not only are you active, but that you’re consistently showing up, sharing valuable information, and interacting with your audience. As your following grows, so does your persona as an expert within your field. And that is what grabs the media’s attention.

If you’ve been inactive on social media and haven’t posted in months, it gives the impression that there isn’t much, if anything, going on with your company or brand. Whether or not that is true, the visuals speak for themselves.

Regardless of the size of your company, having an active presence on social media plays an essential role in any online marketing strategy. It allows you to nurture and engage with your target audience, aides in gaining qualified leads, builds your community and grows your brand’s reputation. These are all necessary tools especially when just starting out.

Social media is a powerful means along with the PR strategies we put into place to amplify our clients messaging. How do you use social media to expand your impact within your respective industry? We’d love to hear how the social media platforms have helped you reach your company's goals.