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In today’s vast and ever-expanding digital environment, you could be forgiven for feeling like everyone has lost their grip on reality - but if your customers are spending more time on-line than ever, why wouldn’t you take advantage?

Social media takes time to manage and one reason you may be dubious to start implementing a social strategy is that you may be afraid that the workload will become too much for you. First it was Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… now there’s snapchat, Pinterest, Google+; the list seems endless.

One thing to always bear in mind though, is that every platform will not be right for you.

There are 4 main reasons why your business should adopt social media, given that they are accessible by the right people:

Brand Building

Consistent branding across all networks, helps to build repetition and recognition. Social networks enable businesses to build brand in a controlled way and the results are instant. You can instantly share content from your websites, instantly connect with existing and potential customers and instantly direct people to your social pages.

Lead Generation

Connecting and working with the right people can earn your business a lot of Kudos. There is no more powerful tool in networking, than a good reputation; built up of strong, positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Connecting with like-minded people also helps you to develop by sharing ideas, in return helping to improve one anothers strategies and practices. Connecting on a more personal level helps to showcase your skills and often results in lead generation.

Peoples decisions are usually affected by the opinions of their peers. So building strong connections who become your social advocates can result in a much better conversion rate.

Listening

'Social media listening' helps you to really tap into the marketplace and find out what people actually think of you. Remember to be open minded – you can’t expect 100% positive feedback all of the time.

Although you should closely monitor what people have to say, remember that negative feedback will ultimately only help you to further improve your business. People are generally more open about your service when sitting behind a keyboard than they are face-to-face; so take advantage of this to get ahead.

Affordability

Social marketing is a powerful tool that should not be underestimated. The affordability of the potential brand awareness is outstanding – this also means that any content created for your website can be re-purposed and pushed out through a multitude of different channels. Although not all social platforms are suitable for all businesses and there’s definitely not a one size fits all solution; tapping into the virtual world surrounding your business is an undeniably useful tool.

(Even if it is just to spy on your competitors.)