For businesses today, a solid social media presence is no longer a nice to have, it is an imperative.

In just a few years, we’ve seen how social media has become a crucial component of business strategies, opening up a powerful avenue for reaching and engaging with current and potential customers.

“Despite the immense opportunities good social media can afford businesses, many operate their platforms and profiles in isolation, often putting out content that they think their target audience will like but that doesn’t necessarily make sense to their business goals, ethos or offering,” Emma-Jane Truter, the founder and head Social Media Strategist at Emma Is Social said.

Truter, whose social media studio has recently launched a new offering to elevate business’ marketing efforts, says that in order to leverage social media’s full potential, a business must align their social media strategy with their business goals.

But where do you start?

“The first step is to define your business goals and outline your top priorities. For some, this could be acquiring new customers, for others it’s ensuring the success of a new product line or increasing market share. Whatever your goals are, it’s critical that you define them up front and only then start looking at how these can be supported by your social media strategy,” Truter said.

Most businesses can easily outline their business goals.

But what do social media goals look like and how can they be linked up with business ones?

The most common social media goals include increasing brand awareness, driving sales and improving customer experience.

Increasing brand awareness

“If your business goal is to increase the level of familiarity and recognition of your brand among its target audience, then a good social media goal alignment would be to increase brand awareness,” Truter added.

For brand awareness, your social media strategy will need to focus on building a large but targeted following and this would require the creation of content that draws attention to your brand’s story and its values. Suitable content would then need to be accompanied by a targeted advertising or boosting strategy on several social media channels that is designed to drive reach.

Driving sales

“If your business goal is to increase profitability, a great way social media can help is to drive sales. Social commerce is currently booming on most social platforms and is a powerful way to not only move product but to boost conversations too.”

However, driving sales through social media requires a lot more work than just detailing your offering and prompting people to purchase.

A strong sales-driven social media strategy must also be able to generate leads and boost website traffic to ensure all of your sales-orientated opportunities are covered.

From a sales perspective, it’s also important to focus on the platform where your target audience is most active.

You’ll need to be consistent in your posting by making sure you share content regularly, as this assists greatly with all social media algorithms.

As important are the kinds of content you post. While focusing on your flash sales, for example, is great, it’s also advisable to mix it up with user generated content that focuses on product reviews or even test things out with an influencer-led campaign that is aimed at driving trial of your product or service.

Improving customer experience

“If your business goal is to increase customer satisfaction, social media can assist considerably by helping to improve your customer’s online experience. With most modern consumers now engaging with social media before anywhere else, you have an amazing opportunity to ensure your customers feel seen, appreciated and receive a high level of service off the bat,” Truter added.

Social media has a leg up on other customer interactions because it enhances experience and satisfaction almost instantly by providing a direct channel for communication and support. Customers no longer have to wait for an email response or phone call, they can be assisted by a brand representative quickly and have their issues resolved far faster than on other channels.

“But exceptional customer satisfaction doesn’t come easy. As a business, you need to have a dedicated person or team that is willing to answer and deal with any question, query or complaint that comes their way. The beauty of this is that if done right, this personal support can raise the respect and appreciation of your business immeasurably, and that is invaluable,” Truter said.

BUSINESS REPORT