Five Reasons Why You Should Be Using Social Media To Grow Your Business

Are you still undecided if establishing a social media presence is right for your direct selling business? Well, here are the top five reasons why you should seriously consider it.

Benefit One: Social Media Opens Your Business To The Whole World

You’re no longer restricted to the boundaries of where you can physically get to. Think of your social profiles as shop windows for your business, except they’re not just on the high street, they are in almost every home in the world. Now, you need to be realistic – whilst your shop window may be available to this huge number of people, that doesn’t actually mean they are all going to take a look or even notice it.

There are literally millions of businesses on social media and the extent to which you get your profile in front of potential customers, depends on how well you implement your social. Having a profile isn’t enough – you are going to need to make sure you are consistently delivering compelling content if you want to reach those potential customers, let alone convert them into actual customers who purchase from you.

When done in the right way, social can become an additional sales and marketing channel for your business, extending your potential customer and leads reach.

Sprout Social states that 83% of Instagram users discover new products or services through the platform, so why wouldn’t you want your business maximising that opportunity?

Benefit Two: Social Media Keeps Your Business Moving, Even When You Can't

When the pandemic hit in 2020 and governments around the world began announcing lockdown measures, businesses were thrown in to disarray, particularly those that relied on face-to-face contact and physical events, such as direct selling. I am pretty certain that the vast majority of you experienced this in March 2020. The bread-and-butter activities of your business came to a halt overnight and many people became anxious about whether they would be able to continue running their businesses.

Those businesses that already had social media as an active sales and marketing channel when lockdown began, still had to adapt and still had to look at how they could acquire sales lost through the removal of face-to-face contact.

It is undeniable that those businesses with an existing social presence were in a significantly better position than those who weren’t using social media when the pandemic hit.

Physical meetings were replaced with online meetings, face-to-face consultations were taking place by video call and large-scale conferences became digital events with us all watching from our own homes. I think I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who has been able to maintain their direct selling business in 2020 / 2021, without social media.

It’s not just during a pandemic that social can keep your business going. Think about when you go on holiday and want to take a well-deserved break. You may worry that your business effectively stops in this scenario, but social can keep your business active. Scheduling content in advance so that it goes live whilst you’re away is a great way to maintain your presence, as is the use of automated responses through social messaging apps, which avoids someone having to wait until you’re back from holiday, for you to respond.

Benefit Three: Social Media Is The Best Type of Free Advertising Available

No other media type offers the same opportunities, whether it be through the free or paid options available. Social networks provide you with the opportunity to present your business to their users, for free. Where else are you given that opportunity? I’ve certainly never heard of the press, radio or TV offering small businesses the opportunity to talk to their audience for free.

In addition to the numerous free options available to use social media, there are of course paid advertising options available as well. These allow you to increase the chances of getting your content seen but the right people – social networks have a tremendous ability to really target specific audience types at an extremely granular level. There are a wealth of different ad types available and unlike traditional media, like press or TV ads, you can implement and launch your advertising campaign within just a matter of minutes.

Please do not fall in to the trap of thinking that using paid ads on social is guaranteed to get you hundreds of new customers and leads.

Yes, the potential to achieve this is there, but the success of your campaign relies on many factors such as the quality of your ad, where it is placed, the network you use for your ad, the audience you choose to target and, of course, the amount you spend.

Benefit Four: Social Media Helps You To Build A Community

Social media is called that for a reason – it is intended to be social. There are many ways that you can interact with your existing customers through social media. Regular interaction will allow you to build genuine relationships with your customers, fostering trust which, as you know, is vital if you want to stop your customers from straying elsewhere. You could do a live Q&A session through Instagram Live, for example, where customers can ask you questions about your latest product release.

No matter what the mechanic is, the principle remains the same – keep engaging with your customers to keep them interested, committed and loyal.

It’s important to be clear about your target audience for each platform if you want to be successful. For example, if you are using your Facebook page to share your products and interact with customers, it doesn’t make sense to post about a new incentive being launched and how it can help your downlines grow their business. This post could not only confuse your customers, it could also result in some people unfollowing your page as they don’t deem the content relevant or interesting to them. It would be far better to have a closed Facebook Group, specifically for your team members, where you can all discuss all those business-related topics that aren’t relevant or appropriate for a customer to hear. Facebook groups are a great way to build a sense of community with your team and I’ve seen numerous examples where sellers are using them extensively to keep in touch with their teams.

Benefit Five: Social Media Allows You To Get Creative & Show Your Personality

It is vital that you make yourself stand out from the numerous others who are offering the same product range and business opportunity as you. There are so many options that you can take advantage of, if you want to show your personality and market what you have to offer in new, innovative and fun ways. For example, instead of posting an image of one of your products and writing a caption, you could record an Instagram Reel, showing you using the product, with animated text calling out the benefits of the product, set to an upbeat music track. This would not only make you stand out from others who are using the more conventional approach, it importantly shows you as an individual.

Fun, relaxed and sometime “silly” content will help you to build a closer relationship with your audience and make your brand appear more “real”.

So, there you have it – 5 key benefits you can achieve through using social media for your business. There really is something for everyone and it’s important to remember that you don’t have to aim to achieve all of these benefits at once. Start with what you are comfortable with and as you become more confident and knowledgeable about social, then you can introduce new elements.