Social media has moved from being just a passing fad to one of the most strategic tools for marketing and carrying out business transactions. Over time, British skeptics believed that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram was meant for people to keep in touch. With businesses hardly benefitting from it. Perhaps that’s why latest reports show that just 60% of UK businesses use these platforms.

If businesses in the UK want to significantly improve their brand capacity to create awareness, generate leads, gain customer insights, share content, build relationships and so on; then they need to learn how to utilize the powers of the social media.

Here’s a breakdown of the immense benefits about half of businesses in the UK may be missing out on, by their lack of or inadequate use of social media.

Creating brand awareness

There are more than 2 billion internet users who have active Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts. This means the most popular social media platforms have also transformed into important marketing and customer service tools, to enable businesses to reach a wider audience.

One survey showed that over 50% of consumers who follow their favorite brands on social media are loyal to them. Staying connected with a brand makes it easy for businesses to retain their customers, which they can also share with friends and family.

Gaining insights on what customers want

A recent report showed that there are more than 4 billion Facebook likes, over 400 million tweets and 90 million updates on Instagram daily. As a business owner, you can use social media to easily find out what your customers need, love or say about you. Once you engage them, you can use the data gathered from these interactions to make smart decisions that’ll grow your business exponentially.

A report showed that over 70% of companies that sell products or services on social media had an increase in returns within 10-12 months. This goes to show that you can generate high converting leads via social channels. If you aren’t on social media already, keep in mind that your customers are, and they expect you to be.

Social media makes customer service better

These days, people don’t go to office to lay complaints, as they can simply reach out to the brand on social media. According to statistics, over 65% of customers prefer social media for customer support. This is because they believe response will be faster and services will be provided round the clock. In fact, many companies who use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for customer support have recorded up to 7% growth – compared to the nearly 3% by those who use traditional methods.

Finally, you can also find out which other businesses in your niche are up to via their social media handles. This will help you make strategic decisions and stay ahead of them. You can also get to share content faster and more easily. This will further boost your site traffic and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). People will easily click on your shared links, leading to high rankings on Google results.

There is no end to the benefits of social media for your business. Whether you are looking to grow your customer base or capitalize on existing popularity, every company can benefit from using it as a marketing channel. There are many resources out there to help smaller businesses start out with a strategy. Including social media advertising guide’s as well as companies that offer social training. Utilize this incredible free tool to drive engagement, increase sales and give your business the best chance of success in 2018.