““I’ve come to believe that connecting is one of the most important businesses—and life—skill sets you’ll ever learn.”- Keith Ferrazzi, Author of Never Eat Alone
Every single business out there is reliant on relationships to a certain degree. We humans simply prefer to interact and work with people and brands we have a relationship with. That also applies to the online world and is the reason why a social media presence and strategy is a must. Another key reason why social media management is so important is repetition.
The Powerful Power of Visibility and Repetition
Let’s face it; consumer buying decisions are not rational. In Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s best seller, “Thinking Fast and Slow” he shows a massive body of research that reveals how irrational we are. For example, one way to make people believe a false statement is to simply repeat it again and again. Human beings don’t make buying decisions in a rational manner, and our gut decisions are often wrong. This is especially true of less expensive items, with less rationality used for everyday purchases.
How is that relevant to you? Quite simply, by having a presence on social media and being in front of your potential customers you’re making a massive difference to your bottom line. Each time they see your brand on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn helps your bottom line. An interesting experiment conducted at University of Michigan and Michigan State University proves this. Ad spaces were taken out in both universities, which contained Turkish and Turkish-sounding words. Some words ran very frequently (up to 25 times), while others only ran 2 times or more. The words that ran the most at one university ran the least in the other. After the ads stopped running questionnaires were sent to the university communities asking which words sounded like they meant something “good” or “bad”. The words that appeared the most were the ones that were overwhelming chosen as meaning something “good”. Remember that these are words that make no sense to the vast majority of students.
We’ve established that social media management is a must due to the concept of repetition. The more times they interact with your brand on social media, the more likely they are to view your brand as positive and trustworthy.
Social Media Makes Your Brand Trustworthy
Now let’s focus on trust. Can you name a single big brand out there that doesn’t have a social media presence? I didn’t think so. A consumer in this day and age expects that you have social media accounts, and that they are active with content and user engagement. It shows that you’re a business that real people love and come back to. Social media also helps your business take advantage of “word-of-mouth” marketing and reviews. For example, let’s say a potential customer looks up your Facebook page. He sees that one of his friends likes your page, and there are positive reviews of your business on your Facebook page. This customer is basically sold on your business and is far more likely to buy.
Social Media Helps You Get Repeat Business
Social media keeps your brand in the mind of past customers. If they were happy the first time around, it’s likely they’ve followed one of your social media accounts. This will keep them up to date on the latest promotions and services. It’ll also allow them to build a relationship with your business. For example many businesses ask for their fan’s opinions. This allows fans to invest into their business and build an actual connection. Needless to say, this allows social media to drastically increase the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of a customer.
Now is the Right Time to Start
73 percent of adults are now on social media[1]. Interestingly enough, the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year old demographic, and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook and Google+ is 45-54 year olds[2]. That means that social media is a must even if your business is targeting older men and women. Everybody’s on social media and businesses that choose to ignore their social media strategies are in danger of losing business.
General Sources-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
Thinking Fast and Slow
