79% of the US population has a social networking profile. What does this imply about social media and its potential for small businesses?

That it’s essential you know how to leverage social media and make it an integral part of your brand’s marketing efforts.

Here’s how smart brands are using social media to make the most of their marketing budgets:

1. Generating High-Quality Leads

Social media allows users to build communities online based on their interests. This makes it much easier for brands to reach niche audiences interested in specific subject matter, products, or services. In other words, if you want to reach an audience that you already know is interested in what you have to offer, social media is a great place to start. Tapping into these targeted audiences guarantees you’ll have a group of like-minded social media users who will show interest in what you have to say (if you provide real value and original insights), which usually translates to high-quality leads.

2. Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

Social media helps you improve your search engine ranking. Whenever your social media shares go up, this helps search engines find you better. When you constantly share posts, your content’s exposure is amplified further, which sends social signals that help search engines recognize your site as credible. Also, the more shares you get on your social media posts, the wider your audience gets as well. And as your social media page rankings go up, the higher your chances are of coming up on top-ranked pages.

3. Helps Drive Traffic to Your Website

If you don’t maintain a strong presence on social media, you’re missing out on organically generated traffic for your website. To expand your reach, use social media to offer relevant and engaging content that will eventually take leads to your website so they can learn more.

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4. Let’s You Keep an Eye on Competition

Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your direct competitors. It’s likely your competition is also trying to maximize social media. This gives you a great opportunity to monitor and even draw inspiration from what they’re doing. Look at what types of content they’re publishing, how their audience is engaging and interacting with it, and learn from what they are doing so you can improve on your strategies.

5. Build Rapport and Trust with Your Customers

There’s no better platform than social media to build trust, loyalty, and rapport with your audience. On social media, you have the opportunity to interact and engage with an audience on a personal level who, ideally, looks forward to what you have to say. You can make the most out of this by regularly engaging with your customers and leads, answering questions, and encouraging conversations—all of which help build a loyal base of followers.

Hope my answers help! Speaking of social media, head over to our Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any questions about this topic and keep the conversation going by leaving a comment below.