Social media for companies

How companies can benefit from social media

Companies can benefit not only from the easy accessibility of users on social media, it’s also relatively straightforward to achieve high reach and visibility for your brand through engaging content. Social networks efficiently become a valuable tool for boosting your brand awareness. Because we know that visibility is crucial for brand building, and social media accelerates this success much more effectively than traditional media. And you don’t even need to invest an excessive amount of money! This is because content creation can be managed within reasonable limits, and if your content goes viral, you’ll achieve the best possible ROI for a relatively small budget.

Social media also allows you to build a genuine community around your company and brand. By targeting your audience, you can swiftly establish customer relationships by easily addressing questions, responding to comments, and engaging with shared posts and mentions.

Social media has long been a viable sales channel for you. By using social ads or organic posts, you can drive traffic to your website, utilize store features on platforms like Facebook, and enhance your marketing efforts. Generating high-quality leads benefits your CRM, and recruiting specialists becomes significantly easier as well.

Speaking of organic reach, users are increasingly turning to social media as a search engine. So, make sure not to miss out on having a presence on social networks, in addition to traditional search engines like Google and Bing, to ensure you can be found.

What percentage of companies use social media?

If you don’t use social media, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities! The majority of companies in Germany recognize this as well: Approximately 77% have at least one social media account.

When you ask these companies about their goals for using social media, several common motivations emerge: About 89% use social media to boost awareness of their brand and products. Closely following, 87% aim to enhance awareness of the company, while 77% focus on improving their image through social media. 76% of respondents focus on acquiring new customers, while 60% aim to improve their customer service through social media.

What social media platforms are available right now?

Facebook

The mother of all social media platforms, which played a crucial role in launching social media marketing: Facebook. With over 3 billion active users each month, it remains the largest network globally, providing a broad array of features, including advertising and analytics, for business clients. The question, however, is how long the user count will remain at this level. Surveys and reports indicate that the platform is becoming increasingly unpopular among younger audiences.

X (formerly Twitter)

As the first microblogging service, X – formerly known as Twitter – was seen as a groundbreaking development in social media. Each month, over 619 million users, including numerous businesses, post articles on current topics, share industry reports, and make professional connections. At least until Tesla CEO Elon Musk took over: He arrived, purchased the platform, revamped it, and increasingly pushed X into negative headlines. The result: An increasing number of users are leaving the platform in protest.

XING

You say business, social media says: XING! The online career network boasts 21.5 million members in German-speaking countries. Why? XING not only allows you to build numerous business contacts through professional networking but also utilizes user data to identify your target audience. Targeting on XING has a high accuracy rate and automatically boosts your reach within the network.

LinkedIn

Take XING and elevate it to a global level. The result is LinkedIn. The parent career network stands out with its global focus and robust community: With over 850 million users globally, the platform is perfect for employer branding and provides a diverse array of advertising opportunities.

Instagram

You should prioritize Instagram on your company’s list of channels and follow the example of nearly 200 million companies that have set up profiles on the platform. We’re happy to provide the reasons for this with some key figures: With over 2 billion active users each month and numerous unique selling points, Instagram has become one of the most popular platforms. Various presentation options like reels, stories, and posts, along with shopping features and influencer marketing, offer compelling incentives for companies. Nowhere else is it so effortless to blend brand storytelling with sales.

YouTube

If you’re looking to concentrate solely on professional storytelling, YouTube is the most well-known video platform on the market. With 2.5 billion users watching videos, tutorials, and shorts each month, the surge in video content means you don’t have to worry about users leaving the platform. YouTube consistently maintains high user numbers, and the numerous advertising options ensure that your content and promotional messages achieve the desired reach.

Which social media platform is experiencing the fastest growth?

Did you notice there was an app missing in our introduction round? That’s because we saved it for this question! TikTok has definitely seen the fastest rise in recent years. The app is currently on everyone’s lips, with 1.6 billion users worldwide, primarily from the younger demographic who are continuously engaged by the content.

According to the Digital Report 2024, TikTok is the most popular social app, leading in dwell time and experiencing the most significant growth year after year. Users spend an average of 37.38 hours per month on the platform. While giants like Instagram and Facebook have seen about a 10% decline in reach and growth this year, TikTok’s influence is expanding significantly. The secret ingredient of the app? Its focus on entertainment through the content graph, rather than the social graph.

Which social media platforms are companies using?

It’s interesting to note that, despite the rapid rise of new apps like TikTok, companies have tended to choose established, reliable platforms. According to the survey, companies use Facebook the most, at 45%, followed by Instagram at 22%, with LinkedIn closely behind at 21%.

If these figures are a major factor in your decision to establish a social media presence, keep one thing in mind: Networks like LinkedIn reach an older, working demographic. Therefore, you should tailor your content to this target audience and focus on creating valuable contributions on selected platforms, rather than trying to engage with every platform simultaneously.

Photo credit Merakist, Unsplash

Which target audience is on which social media platform?

With the reporting and insights provided by today’s social media platforms, it’s easy to implement target audience-focused marketing strategies on the most effective channels. It is crucial to choose the right platform for your company based on your target audience.

For example, Facebook is used by 51% women and 49% men, primarily within the increasingly older demographic. More than half of the users are 35 years or older.
Instagram, on the other hand, has a broad target group of particularly young users: While the gender distribution is equal, 29% of Instagram users are aged 18-24, and 30% are aged 25-34. This is quite the opposite of TikTok, which primarily targets users aged 16-24. YouTube also has a diverse target group, with users aged 14-29 being particularly active.

Platforms like LinkedIn are primarily used by decision-makers and professionals. Here, you can reach your target audience based on professional criteria such as job function, industry, and company location.

Which social media platforms are suitable for B2B?

Initially, social media marketing was primarily associated with B2C, which contributed to the slower adoption of social media as a marketing tool. What we know today is that social networks have just as much potential in the B2B sector! What many people overlook is that decisions in the B2B sector are often made by multiple managers. It is therefore essential in social media marketing to plan and implement long-term measures.

The first step is to select a suitable platform. A few key points and questions can help guide the decision-making process.

Target definition

As a social media manager, you should first consider the following questions: What goals do I want to achieve with social media marketing? And what measures and posts should be planned in this context?

Definition of target group

We never tire of emphasizing that your social media marketing should primarily be based on defining your target audience. This target audience offers new worlds and opportunities for marketing – provided it is leveraged effectively. Otherwise, you might scatter your content aimlessly across social networks and wonder why you’re not seeing any results. By defining a buyer persona or thoroughly describing your target audience, you can effectively pinpoint your ideal target group. The key is to understand your user inside and out: What worries and fears do they have? Which channels do they use? And what content do they want?

Which channels align with the objectives and target audience?

Do you remember the insights from each of the platforms? You now need to align these insights with your objectives and defined target audience to determine which channels are compatible. This is crucial because, despite the focus on social media for businesses, LinkedIn, for example, may not automatically be the right channel for you.

Type of communication

Once your social media manager has addressed the initial points, it’s time to get down to business: Define the type of communication for your chosen channels. Consider how your company should present itself on social media, the tone you want to use in your posts, the message you aim to convey, and, most importantly, the value you can provide.

Content selection

Lastly, you need to decide on your content. The key question is: Which content aligns with your goals and target audience, and what formats do they prefer. Do they prefer photos, video content, or infographics?

How can companies use social media?

Social media is now considered the most powerful marketing tool in the world. Not least due to the numerous possibilities it offers. Effective and creative – this is how social media marketing succeeds, leveraging its reach to support your customer acquisition. Once you have found the right target group and platform, your company can use social media in a variety of ways.

Hashtags

The use of hashtags ensures that your content is categorized and visible. To achieve this, use hashtags to represent the keywords in your content – this also helps fulfill the role of a search engine. The resulting reach provides significant potential for acquiring new customers.

Exciting content

Content creation is the pinnacle of social media marketing: , you want to stand out from the crowd and inspire users. It’s important to regularly analyze the content your target audience is currently engaging with, so you can tailor your content accordingly – ideally, in a creative way.

Regularity

To establish your presence as a relevant account on social media, one thing is especially important: Regularity and continuity. There’s no value in publishing a single post and then leaving your account inactive for weeks. It’s important to post regularly – both for your followers and for the algorithm – to stay interesting and relevant. The best approach is to create a social media content calendar where you outline all your posts and schedule their publication.

Exchange with the community

Never forget: The comment section beneath your posts isn’t just for show! Use it regularly to engage with your followers. You can also conduct customer surveys through stories, allowing you to receive direct feedback from your community.

Influencer marketing

Even though the reputation of influencer marketing may be controversial, we can tell you this: it works. Leverage the advertising power of influencers by entering into collaborations to boost your brand awareness through your account.

What should companies keep in mind when using social media?

Despite the casual nature of social media, it’s crucial to remember how quickly your content and responses can be shared across networks. For this reason alone, your company urgently needs guidelines for conduct and interactions on social media. This could include details on your social media marketing strategy or third-party tools that assist with content creation.

It is also designed to protect the company from online security risks and to provide clarity on what information can be shared online. In short: The social media guidelines are primarily intended for employees, but also apply to influencers, business partners, and creative agencies that your company collaborates with.

Overall, these guidelines are a crucial part of the social media management practices you should be implementing. It encompasses all aspects of managing, monitoring, and optimizing social media activities across all platforms.
It’s important to understand that social media guidelines differ from the policy and style guide.

Social media policy

The social media policy is a detailed document outlining how companies and employees should use social media. This policy aims to protect the company from legal risks and safeguard its reputation on social media.

Social media style guide

The style guide, on the other hand, includes guidelines for the brand voice and visual brand elements. This ensures that social media posts are consistent with corporate identity (CI) guidelines and align with the overall brand image across various social media channels.

What disadvantages can social media have for companies?

A social media channel handling everything – often sounds too good to be true. Despite the enthusiasm, we must not overlook the disadvantages that come with this new marketing tool.

To use social media effectively and implement strategies, it requires a significant amount of time: Content creation, planning, publishing, monitoring, and analysis take much more time than you might initially expect.
This also demands a certain level of expertise: Not everyone who enjoys social media is automatically an expert. Becoming a professional in social media marketing requires extensive specialist knowledge, creativity, technical understanding, and ongoing professional development.

Similarly, the targeted approach to potential new customers may not be as quantifiable in concrete figures as one might assume. Measuring conversions can be challenging because social media users often have multiple touchpoints along their customer journey before deciding to make a purchase. This risk is compounded by the general information overload that users face. As a result, there’s increasing pressure to stand out from the crowd along the customer journey through exceptional creativity and a suitable advertising budget.

What are the risks associated with social media?

Here’s another piece of advice: On Instagram and similar platforms, you are on the most visible stage on the internet. Social media also presents several risks that you must consider in your strategy.

Firstly, you must be extremely cautious when handling copyright issues. Therefore, it is essential to verify for each post whether you have the rights to use the images and videos. If not, you risk copyright infringement, which could lead to legal actions such as injunctions. To be on the safe side, it’s advisable to insure your company against such risks.

The loss of control on social media is also a significant concern. Once your content is online, you can no longer control how users will react to it. In the worst-case scenario, if these reactions are negative, they could have severe consequences.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing (SMM) is a type of online marketing that utilizes social media platforms to promote and market products or services. It encompasses all tactical and strategic efforts aimed at communicating company messages, engaging with followers, and driving traffic to the website.

What are the objectives of social media marketing?

A common mantra is that social media marketing requires persistence. It demands a good deal of practice, motivation, and, of course, a well-defined strategy. To implement this strategy effectively, it is crucial to set clear goals. It’s important to remember that these goals should go beyond simply increasing followers or likes on your posts. It’s also beneficial if these goals align with your overall business objectives.

These objectives for your social media marketing can be categorized into three main areas: Reach, engagement and conversions.

In the realm of reach, key performance indicators (KPIs) can include metrics such as your follower count and impressions. The key question here is how many people regularly see your content, which reflects your brand’s visibility.
Engagement centers on how your followers interact with your content. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for engagement include likes, comments, reactions, shares, and tags.

Conversions represent the pinnacle of goals for your social media activities. Success can be gauged by metrics such as website traffic, the number of leads generated, and purchases made through your social media channel.

Certainly, you can also set goals such as enhancing customer loyalty, strengthening your brand, improving your company’s image, or gaining better insights through market research. But no matter which one you choose, you should always define your goals according to the SMART formula: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. This not only allows you to realistically assess your goals and prioritize them, but also gives you a deadline. In combination, it gives you the opportunity to track your goals accordingly.

How much does social media marketing cost?

The cost of your social media marketing will depend on how you do it – internally with your team or externally in collaboration with an agency.

If you handle it in-house, your costs will primarily be limited to personnel expenses and any additional costs for social ads and tools. But remember our earlier advice: Your team should possess the necessary expertise, so allocate a budget for their training and development.

Alternatively, you can hire an external agency to develop a tailored social media strategy and assist with setting up your social media channels. Support varies by service area, including social media advertising, management, and community management, with prices typically ranging from €650 to €2000.