Over the past ten years, social media has become bigger than anyone could have imagined. With 5.7 BILLION users across various apps and platforms, it now has the power to boost brand visibility and influence people from all walks of life. Most social platforms now use sophisticated algorithms that shape what people see and engage with. For brands, that means you’ve got to make sure those algorithms work in your favour.
Users typically engage with an average of 6.7 different social networks per month, meaning that if you’re not taking the time to understand the platforms and making sure your brand has a strong online presence, you could be missing out on invaluable reach that can get your brand talked about – for all the right reasons.
When used strategically, social media can support marketing, competitor analysis, market research, customer communication, sales, brand visibility, customer service, AND real-time feedback. The best part is that it all happens in one place, where your customers already spend their time, AND the majority of the time, it’s completely free to use. That’s why social media has the potential to be the ultimate business tool, driving brand growth through reach and engagement.
In this blog, we’ll explore how a strategic social media presence can elevate your brand and drive greater visibility.
What’s in this article:
- Four ways social media marketing builds your brand and boosts online presence
- How social media marketing drives customer engagement and business growth
- How to choose the best social media platform for your business
- Key takeaways
Four ways social media marketing builds your brand and boosts online presence
Over half of the world’s population uses social media, so there’s no surprise that these platforms have the potential to boost your brand and offer unparalleled visibility, expanding your online reach like never before. But users aren’t just interacting with each other – they’re interacting with brands and businesses too. Recent data shows us that a huge 90% of social media users follow at least one brand, with active participation across all demographics, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers. This is why social media should be an essential part of your business' marketing strategy.
.jpg)
Here are four key ways that social media can build your brand and increase its online presence:
1. Brand recognition
Social media offers a great opportunity for your business to be seen loud and proud. Before engaging with a brand, customers often turn to social platforms to assess its reputation, helping them decide whether a business aligns with their own values and expectations. 62.3% of Instagram’s adult users use the platform specifically to research brands, for example. This is why it’s important to maintain consistent messaging and visual branding across your platforms, as it allows you to reinforce your brand’s identity and make it instantly recognisable. With the right PR and marketing strategy, your brand can even gain viral status, reaching not only loyal customers but a much larger audience.
User-generated content (UGC) such as reviews, photos, and videos are all ways to build credibility and strengthen your brand’s reputation. This is where brands use and promote content made by their customers and brand ambassadors. Around 42% of brands use UGC in their content, as it’s organic, affordable and shows integrity, offering a far more natural approach to content creation. Hashtags also play a key role in making your brand discoverable by the right people. Including relevant hashtags in your posts can provide extra context and make your content findable, driving more traffic and boosting engagement.
Social media allows businesses to gain traction both nationally and internationally – an opportunity that would have been far more difficult and much more costly before the world went digital.
2. Cost-effective advertising
Most of the time social media platforms are free, making them a highly cost effective option for marketing, while allowing you to target specific audiences and track analytics.
A solid and consistent content strategy will help you build trust and credibility with your audience over time, leading to a genuine organic online reach. Focusing on creating engaging content and having authentic interactions with your audience, you can grow your following naturally – increasing brand visibility and providing long term value without the need to spend on expensive ads.
But if required, most social media platforms do offer options to do paid ads, which will allow you to boost posts and your business profiles with small payments. Flexible ad budgets make this option accessible to businesses of all sizes, helping to quickly expand reach or target specific demographics. While paid ads can deliver immediate results, a solid organic strategy can complement these efforts and create lasting impact without the continuous costs and over reliance on one digital marketing tactic.
3. Increase reach and website traffic
Social media can increase your online reach. Uploading relevant content and links on social platforms can help to drive traffic to your website. For example, if an Instagram campaign performs well, it has the likelihood of being shared across other platforms, boosting brand awareness and driving potential customers to your site.
This is also valuable for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), which is important to consider with the rise of AI. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity crawl information from the internet and create summaries to answer search result queries, GEO focuses on helping your content appear within these AI-generated search results.
Many brands are now showing up in AI search responses, so creating relevant, concise content that directly answers common questions is becoming more important than ever. Writing digital content in a style that is easy for AI crawler bots to understand will help these tools interpret your work more accurately and use it more effectively in their outputs. Platforms like Substack and X can be particularly effective for having your content show up in AI search results.
It’s also important to make it easy for users to navigate your online presence. Tools like Linktree allow you to easily direct followers to important links, such as your website, other social media profiles, or important content. This tool makes it simple to add multiple links in one place, ensuring followers have quick access to the most relevant information. This can also drive traffic and increase engagement across your website and digital accounts.
When social media drives visitors to your website, key metrics like time on site, bounce rate, and page views improve. These are signals that search engines use to determine the value of your content, and are the metrics that contribute to better search rankings. Search engines prioritise fresh, updated content, and with the ease of updating on social media, you can keep your content current and boost SEO.
4. Influencer partnerships
Working with influencers can help boost your digital marketing. Using influencers to either feature in campaigns or review your products on their social media platform helps to generate trust in your brand, expand your reach, and introduce your brand to a broader, yet relevant, audience.
Influencers are skilled content creators who understand what resonates with their audience. Whether through photos or videos, influencers create high quality content that show off your brand in an organic and relatable way. This content often performs better than traditional marketing tactics, as it feels less like an advertisement and more like an authentic and personal recommendation – particularly useful when you consider that fewer than 1 in 5 people trust ads. Partnering with influencers can also reduce the pressure on your team to consistently produce engaging content.
For example, Caroline Hirons is a trusted face in the beauty industry, so brands often collaborate with her to promote products or launches social media. Using trusted influencers in this way shows integrity and helps customers see that a product is really worth buying, because more often than not, those following influencers often trust their judgement.
Here's another example: Known for her ‘Chicken Shop Date’ videos, Amelia Dimoldenberg featured in a successful marketing campaign for Bumble which featured on multiple platforms from TikTok to Instagram. In her series, Amelia comes across as slightly awkward yet humorous while going on dates with celebrities. This campaign was a great fit because her content often focuses on uncomfortable dating scenarios, which mirror real-life experiences that Bumble users may face.
How social media marketing drives customer engagement and business growth
76% of people say they’d choose to buy from a brand they feel connected to over a competitor. So, how can social media strengthen customer engagement and nurture those connections to drive business growth?
.jpg)
1. Direct communication
Social media provides your customers with quick, direct access to your business, cutting out the delays often associated with traditional and ‘old school’ communication methods, like emails or letters. Whether you're announcing a flash sale, answering questions, or sharing important updates, social media marketing allows your business to communicate instantly, and respond to customer needs in real time.
Direct communication also creates a more personal, interactive experience, allowing you to engage with customers one on one. You can listen to their feedback, resolve issues, and build stronger relationships. This immediate response boosts customer satisfaction and strengthens loyalty, as you can quickly meet customer needs and answer their concerns.
2. Competitor analysis
Social media is one of the quickest and most effective ways to gain insights into your competitors' strategy. You can regularly track your competitors online activity by observing their content strategy and engagement levels to assess whether their messaging is well received – giving you insight into which posts get the most attention, how often they engage with their followers and what campaigns or promotions they're running.
Social listening and competitor tracking tools like Similarweb and Hootsuite make it easier to monitor competitor activity, giving you valuable data on their strengths and weaknesses. Staying on top of trends and creating relevant, reactive content based on your competitors' strategies will help your business remain competitive and well-aligned with industry shifts.
3. Customer insights and feedback
Customer insights and feedback are easily gathered through interactions like comments, likes, reviews and even shares, giving you valuable information about what customers want and how they engage with your content. Feedback can also be collected through direct messages, polls and surveys, offering a better understanding of your customers preferences.
Social media allows you to gather valuable insights without the need for costly research methods. This information can refine your product offerings and customer experiences, as well as shaping more targeted marketing strategies, delivering better results at a lower cost.
4. Community building
Consumers are increasingly looking for deeper connections with brands, and social media platforms provide the ideal place to create a sense of community, allowing your audience to feel like they're part of something. Through creating an engaged and inclusive online environment your brand can build stronger, more meaningful relationships with their audience, transforming followers into loyal customers.
Interactive campaigns, compelling storytelling, active engagement, and the creation of groups or forums are effective ways to enhance community building. Using social media to form a community helps to improve engagement and strengthen trust with your customers, ultimately boosting customer loyalty.
5. Customer support and service
Social media provides a valuable tool for customer support. Thanks to its ability to enable real time communication, it allows you to quickly respond to customer inquiries and resolve issues. With the rise of AI, chatbots can automatically handle general queries, ensuring customers receive an instant response. More complex issues can then be escalated to a customer service representative.
Many social media platforms enable 24/7 availability, allowing customers to reach out at any time, even when your business isn't operating. While chatbots can assist with responses outside business hours, your team can focus on more critical issues during working hours. Including a support and service section in your social platforms can reduce the time spent managing emails, save costs, and improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
How to choose the best social media platform for your business
Now that you understand the benefits of bringing your business to social media, it's time to choose the right platform(s) for your brand. While it's recommended to use multiple platforms to maximise your online reach and content potential, it can feel overwhelming to decide what to prioritise – and not all of them will suit your brand or target audience.
Many of the classic social media platforms remain dominant, for example, Facebook remains number one with around 3.07 billion monthly active users (MAUs). Instagram follows with 2billion MAUs, while TikTok has roughly 1.84billion. X (formerly known as Twitter) has around 563million, and LinkedIn attracts close to 310million MAUs.
Below you'll find a few of these social media platforms, all of which are widely used for social media marketing. I’ve also included Substack, a newer player to the game but one I think is worth keeping your eye on. I'll explain how you can use each platform and include a general demographic breakdown to help guide your decision.
.jpg)
1. Instagram
Instagram is primarily a platform for picture and video content, offering various ways to engage your audience. You can post on your feed, share videos on the reels page, and share moments through stories. Incorporating interactive features such as polls and quizzes into your stories can help boost engagement. These features will also provide your business with valuable customer feedback. Instagram also provides the option to ‘go live’, creating real time interaction with your followers.
For product based e-commerce businesses, Instagram also offers a marketplace feature, allowing creators to sell directly through the platform.
Instagram's messaging feature allows businesses to send pre-written responses and set up broadcast channels, making it easier to engage with customers.
Instagram has more than 500 million active daily users everyday across the world, with a near equal split between men and women. The platform is most popular among 18 to 34 year olds, though users extend across all age groups, including those 65 and older.
2. TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video platform that allows users to create engaging videos, go live, and sell directly through TikTok Shop. Businesses using TikTok benefit from its highly interactive nature, which encourages direct engagement with audiences. TikTok now allows videos up to 10 minutes long, giving brands more room to share detailed content. Its algorithm prioritises discovery, so consistent posting, creative content, and using popular trends or challenges can significantly boost visibility.
TikTok has over 1.59 billion monthly active users, most of which are between the ages 18 and 44, though the platform also appeals to users as young as 10!
3. X (formerly Twitter)
X is primarily centred around short-form written content, with the option to enhance posts with videos and images. You can ask questions, make statements, include polls, and engage by responding to or reposting content.
Memes and light hearted content are commonly shared on X, allowing you to showcase your business’s personality, take advantage of reactive marketing, and connect with your audience in a fun, authentic way. The direct message feature allows you to use AI responses and engage in personalised conversations with your customers.
X is a platform with a distinct gender difference, with 63.7% of its users being male. X sees 132 million active users daily across the world, and attracts a broad age range, from 18 to 65+. However, 58.38% of its audience is aged between 18 and 34.
4. Facebook
Facebook allows businesses to show their brand through a mix of written content, images, and videos, along with targeted ads to reach specific audiences. This platform allows businesses to increase their visibility through organic posts and paid campaigns, as well as encouraging engagement through interactive content such as polls, live videos, and comments. Businesses can connect with their audience, showcase their personality, and respond to customer inquiries in real time, enhancing customer relationships.
Facebook dominates the social media field with 2.11 billion daily active users, making it the most widely used platform by far. Facebook remains popular across all age ranges, from 13 to 65+. The smallest demographic is those aged 65+ – yet they still account for approximately 120.3 million people.
5. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a platform for professional, business related content, including articles, written posts, images, and videos, while also offering advertising options. This platform is ideal for B2B marketing, expert commentary, and networking, allowing businesses to establish their credibility and engage with other professionals. LinkedIn offers a range of tools such as company pages, job postings, and sponsored content which allows businesses to connect with potential clients, partners, and talent in a more formal, professional way than other platforms. The platform also encourages conversation through comments, shares, and direct messages to build professional relationships and create business growth.
LinkedIn has 310 million monthly active users, with 16.2% of them logging in daily. As a platform geared more towards professionals, its daily usage tends to be less consistent than other networks. The 25-34 age group dominates, accounting for 60% of its users.
6. Substack
Substack is a platform for writers and those interested in niche topics. The platform launched in 2017 and already has more than 35 million active subscriptions. This publishing platform allows brands to create content that resonates with their audience, offering a space that is both informative and personal. It leans on long-form content for those who want more than what other social media platforms provide. Brands from Hinge to Free People and Loftie are already utilising Substack as another way to keep their audience engaged and help their names stick.
Platforms like Substack, where conversation is open and deeper discussions take place, help create a sense of community – something consumers increasingly want, with 76.6% wishing that their favourite brands offered one.
Substack attracts an almost equal split of men and women, with 23.9% of its users aged between 25 and 34. It is also popular among users aged 35 and over, with those aged 55-64 particularly favouring the platform, accounting for 17.5% of its visitors.
Key takeaways
- Social media is essential for business. With over 5 billion daily users worldwide, it’s a free, powerful platform for marketing, customer communication, sales, and market research.
- Organic and paid strategies work together. While social media is a free platform, paid advertising can boost visibility. However, a strong organic presence through consistent, engaging content is key for long-term success.
- Each platform serves different purposes. Not all social platforms suit every business. Choosing the right ones based on audience and content style ensures better engagement and results.
- Social media drives customer engagement and insights. Businesses can connect directly with customers, gather valuable feedback, and even provide real-time customer support, helping to build loyalty and trust.
- Social media complements SEO and GEO. With AI-driven search becoming increasingly important for brand visibility, sharing content across multiple platforms online improves your chances of appearing in AI search results.
Need help with your social media strategy? Contact us today for expert guidance on growing your brand online.
.webp)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
