Today, technology, connectivity and the social web have given marketers unprecedented opportunities to meet needs. Brands such as Apple, Amazon, Harley Davidson and Waitrose have clearly demonstrated the power and profit of creating a sense of belonging and customer engagement.
We see the need to belong most in social networks and this opens great opportunities for companies to create community connections which can satisfy core psychological needs. Social media space can provide businesses the platform to build brand communities that allow customers to feel like they belong to something, are heard and can contribute.
People may have a perception about your company even if you don’t do any PR and PR is about moving that perception to where you’d like it to be. Research shows that people buy more from people they know.
- Repeat customer spend on average is 67% more than new customers
- Existing customers tend to refer 7+ new customers
However, social media marketing is very different from traditional marketing or direct sales. It’s less about selling things online and more about engaging with people and making your brand part of their life.
Convincing clients can a challenge because some clients don’t get social media. Often it is because they were used to the environment of direct sales so they’re not familiar with the idea of engaging customers by having conversations and entertaining them. Social media is a way to get your brand present in someone’s daily life without selling anything to them immediately. But when they eventually want what you offer, your brand could be at the forefront in their minds.
Here’s ten statistics on social media to highlight the extent of its global penetration and why engaging consumers through mobile and digital social media communications is crucial and is “a must have”, rather than a “nice to have” of every brand’s marketing and communications strategy.
Global Active Internet Users now totals 3.175 Billion, that’s nearly half of the world’s population (7.357 Billion).
- Social Media – over 2.206 Billion active users, a global penetration of 30%.
- 734 Billion Unique Mobile Users as of this quarter, accounting for a 51% worldwide penetration.
- 925 Billion users utilise their mobiles for Social Media platforms.
- Social Media users have risen by 176 Million in the last year.
- 365 Million active mobile social users have been added over the same time span, an incredible total growth of 541 Million.
- Facebook adds ½ million new users every day; 6 new profiles every second. An ever-expanding market worth tapping into.
- Mobile users constitute half of the world’s population, and 2 million smart phones are sold worldwide every single day.
- 12 new active mobile social users are added every second, that’s 1 Million per day.
- WhatsApp has gained 300 Million new users since this time last year (August 2014), a year on year growth of 60%.
Do you identify your key targets and make friends with them either face to face, call, email or have a conversation with them via social media? Sharing what’s coming up, or customer insights, including photos can generate their own news and you can use the same information in many different ways.
Monitoring and measuring traffic to your media pages are important too. However, clients often wonder what high engagement really means or question the value of having people visit their page. We liken it to each number represents eyeballs on their brand. When you share a conversation with customers and potential customers on social media, it is like having people come into your shop or office. When that happens, you would engage with them and you talk to them. On social media the trick is to create content that is funny, interesting or compelling. That’s how you create fans, gain new customers and build your brand that people want to be part of. In the social media space, it’s Like, Share or Comment.
Look at it another way, for example in sports, especially football, it’s a great place to see the psychology of belonging in action – fans, supers fan, SUPERSTORE!