Why Is Social Media an Important Part of Inbound Marketing?

The top 10 benefits of social media marketing for businesses

We’ll talk about why social media matters for inbound marketing more specifically later.

But these are the top 10 general benefits of social media for businesses:

Increases brand awareness
Grows brand authority
More opportunities to convert and hence more conversation
Builds a community around your brand
Better customer experience, leading to…
Higher customer satisfaction…
Higher customer loyalty
Helps to boost SEO efforts
Cost-effective
Time-effective

And now that same list but a little more elaborated if you have a minute.

If not, or you believed us the first time (aww, thank you), jump straight to “What is Inbound Marketing.”

1. Increases brand awareness

Getting on social media exposes you to the people who are already there – virtually an infinite pool of potential customers. The more your account grows, the more new people find out about you.

You get to tell your story and facilitate conversation as a company.

Even better? Your employees can use their socials and share the love with their networks (as long as it’s not forced on them – don’t be that brand).

For example, this is Dooly’s LinkedIn:

They have 22,825 followers – not bad at all!

But it doesn’t end there, because their employees are also active and got their own followings to add:

Notice another 22k followers. Fine, maybe there’s some overlap.

But that’s still at least 15k other people getting exposed to Dooly on the regular – whenever Camille writes a post (by the way, follow Camille; she’s great).

Whether it’s related to Dooly and content marketing or something totally random.

When it feels organic, this can be a great way to raise brand awareness and start building relationships.

2. Grows brand authority

Social media lets you zone in on the latest industry trends, offer your unique perspective to current discussions, and educate your audience.

The result isn’t just sounding like a smart cookie.

It’s brand authority. As in, people start viewing you as a valuable resource on your topic of expertise and put trust in your brand.

Bonus points if you actively engage with them and answer their queries.

Including their complaints!

Solving problems instead of deleting negative comments shows you care about your audience on a deeper level and aren’t trying to look perfect at their expense.

3. More conversation = more opportunities to convert

This intel is the kind of stuff you can usually only extract from your sales analytics.

But having a social media presence has another advantage:

It shows you your customers outside of their interaction with you.

Nothing says you can’t click through their public profiles and see who they’re talking to – what else they like, what they find funny, what they’re all about.

This helps you target them better (for lack of a non-creepy way to say that) and bridge the gap from audience to customers.

4. Builds a community around your brand

Social media helps you raise engagement and get people involved.

It’s not all about you!

But starting discussions, encouraging questions, and organising around your target audience can help you create a community they’re glad to participate in.

People want to belong and connect with others like them. And we’ve seen just how important online communities are during the lockdown when all other contact was limited.

But why does this matter to you?

And plus, all the helpful exchanges people have that aren’t directly about your product still get associated with you because they happen in the community you built.

This results in higher credibility and confidence in your brand and a better time for all parties involved.

5. Better customer experience

If you didn’t pay attention to benefit #4, you might want to reread it because this one ties with it.

A happy, buzzing community = a better customer experience.

How so?

Imagine you’re an eco-conscious person looking to buy a quality safety razor.

You see an ad for some brand you’ve never heard of, but their Instagram profile seems brand new. They’re talking about all these benefits of their product and offering insane deals – but there are literally zero comments on their posts.

No reviews, nada.

You don’t want to risk it and end up with rubbish.

But this reminds you to look for the right company, and this time you find one that has a huge following base.

And not just followers – these people are seriously engaged. A bunch of them post videos where they’re trying out the razor – yes, on actual hairy legs.

You wonder about the packaging, but before you even ask, you see someone already did and they got responses from other users reassuring them there’s no plastic involved.

You’re thrilled.

The best part is that you didn’t even have any contact with the brand yourself – it was all the community doing the work.

For you as a customer, this is much more convenient and convincing than trying to connect the dots on your own and wondering if you can trust the brand.

Or worse, getting directed to a FAQ that answers only the questions the company wishes people would ask.

6. Higher customer satisfaction…

Convenience? Full transparency? Buzzing community with all the answers?

What’s not to like?

Social media increases customer satisfaction. They not only appreciate you ticking all these boxes – they expect you to do it.

B2B audiences spend a lot of time researching solutions and social media is one of the channels they turn to for helpful, informative, and engaging content. They want you to make their research easy.

B2C audiences look for brands on social media, too. They expect you to give them all the important information and make their buyer journey effortless.

You can cover a lot of that ground on social media.

7. Higher customer loyalty

We’ve talked about a good user experience, and that’s a valid point for customer loyalty too.

But one especially nice thing about social media marketing is that you can align yourself with the values and missions of your target audience.

Not quite the Pavlov effect, but similar.

For example, Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees with each search query. Yes, we’re feeling green today.

This twist that doesn’t have much to do with the standard search engine narrative is enough to differentiate Ecosia from their competitors and strike a chord with the people who care.

“You’re saying this is just like a regular search bar but I’m also helping a good cause and planting trees? Sign me up!”

And since you’ve established a more important reason for them to pick you over competitors, they’re more likely to stay, because it’s not just about the product anymore.

It’s the mission. And the storytelling that tied you to it.

Plus, you know where people go when they want to share mind-blowing discoveries.

8. Helps to boost SEO efforts

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is just fancy speak for jumping some hoops to prove to search engines you’re legit and important.

A lot of content marketing revolves around it.

But one integral thing about SEO that people often forget is that Google and co prioritise user engagement metrics as a way to estimate your website.

And this again highlights the importance of social media marketing: these platforms are all about engagement.

You can use them to distribute the content you’re creating elsewhere by breaking it down into smaller pieces and peppering them all over the place.

Get more people to click. Start more than one conversation. Connect the dots with one another and with the source on your website.

Easy.

9. Cost-effective

Creating social media profiles and posting costs practically nothing.

Regular content creation is an effort, sure, but if you focus on quality over quantity and strategically reuse your content from other platforms like blogs, you can get by even without a hefty budget.

More importantly, the results are very much worth it.

The ROI isn’t so straightforward to calculate because this isn’t just a quick-sell method.

Social media marketing is about planting the seeds, nurturing your relationships and reaping the big long-term bang for your buck.

Still, here’s an idea of how to look at it across the funnel (this just says how far along the audience is from converting to customers):

That’s the long-term lens.

But even short-term, every post you create and conversation you have is an opportunity to convert.

There’s no industry that wouldn’t benefit from that.

10. Time-effective

Social media content often takes less time to create because it’s short.

It’s more about the initial preparation to make sure you have your value proposition and all the other brand-specific things figured out.

Who you are. What you stand for. What kind of tone and character you have.

Your brand’s story. Then, it’s pretty straightforward:

Comment, listen, respond
Repurpose and recycle content to squeeze all the juice out of it
Experiment with forms like video, images, gifs, etc.
Be personable – no point going to social media to be a bland robo-company

Because it’s so time-effective, social media is a great side-kick to any inbound marketing strategy and often works as an affordable solo gig, too.

And now that we’re done with the generic stuff, let’s get more focused – starting with inbound.

Just in case you’re not 100% sure about the difference between inbound and outbound but feel like it’s too late to ask…

It’s fairly simple:

The idea with inbound marketing is that you create great content that’s valuable for your target audience and have them come to you, instead of you chasing them like in traditional, outbound marketing.

The difference between inbound and outbound marketing lies in who initiates that first contact – you or your audience – as well as the methods you use to get them to buy from you.

Outbound is aggressive. It’s like the annoying assistant shopper in the store who follows you and keeps trying to sell even though you assure her you’re just looking around – a lot of people aren’t into it.

And the majority find it annoying enough to leave the store.

Inbound is a universally preferred alternative that opens the door for your audience to come to you if they see it fit.

Like leaving cookies out for Santa.

So where does social media fit in there?

Well, we touched on creating content (your Santa cookies), but that doesn’t only have to be long-form stuff like blogs.

Social media is a platform that lets you distribute and repurpose that type of content, too.

But it’s also an opportunity for brand new content creation.

Some examples you’ll recognise include hashtag campaigns on Instagram like ASL Association’s #IceBucketChallenge:

Or short video content series like BuzzFeed’s Tasty:

Not, we know what you’re thinking:

“Mmm, strawberries and cream crepes.”

But also:

“Fine, so social media belongs in this category. But why is it an important strategy for inbound marketing?”

That’s exactly what we’re onto next.

That’s where your audience lives

Globally, people spend around two and a half hours on social media each day.

It’s so much easier for you to go there and mingle than to work hard on dragging them to your place.

People want convenience.

They know there are millions of brands out there competing for their time and attention so they have plenty of options.

They might check if you’re already there on socials, but they’re not about to go out of their way to find you, sign up for your newsletters, and buy from you.

If only life were that kind.

Nope, it’s you who has to wine and dine them and make yourself the best option for them.

Social media is a great place to start building relationships that don’t feel forced and maximise your ROI along the way.

That opens the door for your other inbound marketing efforts, too.

Audience insights and content ideas

Posting surveys and watching how people behave and what they like give you a better, more complete overview of who they are.

Better marketing personas = better aim on your targeted efforts to hit the bullseye.

And this informs your entire marketing plan, not just what to do on social media.

There’s this neverending discourse on how you can get closer and gain more important insights about your audience. They can be so elusive sometimes!

But the thing is, they’re not trying to hide.

Social media literally thrives on people posting about what’s important to them.

You’ll see them talking for hours on Instagram Stories about this new app they’re loving or a realisation they had last night or how they’re reorganising their fridge – what’s stopping you from taking a look in their “highlights” section?

This is raw and real data you won’t get from forms.

It goes way beyond demographics. It’s their daily life, the humour, the purpose, and the words to express it all – out there, waiting to be heard.

Almost 1:1 conversations with your users

Even though content marketing is the more organic, natural way for people to discover you, there is still that wall between you.

You’re very distinctly a company – a big, non-human behemoth. Especially if you also happen to use those faceless, formless humanoids in your design.

Social media feels like it levels the field a little bit.

Suddenly you’re human and get to participate in open, direct 1:1 conversations by responding to comments and engaging with your audience.

They say something and get the response in five minutes. They feel important!

Not only are you more personable, but they’re also more involved – especially if you incentivise them by helping them act on their values or creating immersive content that makes them feel like a part of the brand.

You become more important to them and they’re more invested because you’ve made it about them.

Then all your other content and pitches hit different.

Great for repurposing content from other inbound channels

Social media marketing involves content in various microforms like one-liner statuses, images, carousel mini-blogs, memes, short video clips, polls, etc.

They thrive on bite-sized information.

Which means they’re the perfect place to drop fifteen mini-lessons from a larger piece of content like a blog or podcast and keep re-kindling the flame.

You can easily combine them with other content types and recycle old posts so everything you do is used to its maximum potential.

Helps drive traffic to your site

All those sparks you’re serving across social media come from the same fire, and eventually, your audience gets curious and invested enough to look for it.

As we said, each post is an opportunity to reach new people and draw attention to your brand.

Think of the example with Dooly:

You have a LinkedIn company page and you’re posting there. You may also have employees rallied up who are also posting to their personal audiences.

And each time someone posts, there’s the humble little “Dooly” mention next to their name just waiting to be clicked.

Once people are on your site, it’s any inbound marketing strategy’s game.

Promotes word-of-mouth marketing

Two important things:

People trust people who share their struggles more than they trust companies trying to make a sale
People share things they like with their friends and family

If you can be entertaining, clever, or meaningful enough in your messaging as well as the delivery, you’re worth sharing.

55% of 13 to 35-year-olds share memes weekly, for instance. That includes memes created as part of digital marketing.

But it’s also about credibility. If you have people talking about how great your product is and exactly what it helped them solve, your audience is going to pay close attention.

“Hey, I could use help with that. What, that really worked?”

Social proof is much better than any promise you can make.

And social media is like a goldmine for this.

Use it to ask questions, encourage reviews, and reward sharing.

Then you plaster the results on your site and have everything else you say validated and verified as “legit” by users.