The number of people who are currently using some form of social media is astronomical and is continuing to grow. In fact, statistics from expandedramblings.com show that currently there are 1.11 billion people on Facebook, 500 million Twitter users (with about 40% of those accounts being active), close to 350 million active Google+ users, 225 million LinkedIn members and about 50 million Pinterest users.

With all these people using social media, if your business isn’t active on social media, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with current as well as potential customers. Being present on social media can help with growing your business… below are just a few ways:

Customer Service
When it comes to customer service people customer expectations have risen dramatically, especially when it comes to the amount of time for customer support to respond to a customer question or complaint.

Just consider some of the following statistics that comes from a 2013 LivePerson Connecting with Customers report which surveyed more than 5,700 consumers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Italy and Germany:

• Approximately 71% of online customers will be expecting to be able to receive some type of assistance within five minutes of reaching out to a company (31% expect immediate assistance and the other 41% expect it within 5 minutes).
  
• 48% will abandon the site (this jumps to 58% for consumers in the UK) if they don’t receive the support within the allotted time.
  
• 33% of the people surveyed would rather contact a business through one of their social media channels as opposed to telephone.

So what can you do to help with improving your ability to prove top notch customer service through your social media channels?

• Setup notification alerts for high priority keywords. It’s important to monitor what is being said about you online. You can use tools like Social Mention, TweetDeck, or Google Alerts.
• Respond to both complaints and compliments. You can use a tool like Hootsuite in order to respond quickly with a personal message to keep customers as happy as possible.
• Make it easy for people to find you. If someone has a complaint, if they can’t find an easy way to contact you, then they’ll find a way to post a complaint on a forum where you don’t have control. Conversely, if someone has a compliment, they’ll most likely forgo leaving it if they can’t contact you easily. Make sure that all the social networks that you’re on are easily found on your website as well as appropriate contact information for customer service and hours of operation. You can also incorporate an online chat feature on your website to help customers get in touch with you quickly.

Lead Generation
Social media can be a fantastic tool for generating additional leads for your business. By sharing interesting and relevant content, you’ll be able to get your followers to engage with your business and become evangelists for your brand, spreading your message to their friends, and potentially bringing in new customers. Check out this infographic from Wishpond to see just how effective social media can be for lead generation.

A few ways to use the various social networks to find new leads:

• Facebook – If you have an advertising budget, the use of Promoted Posts can be an effective way to ramp up fan engagement. Make sure that the post you want to promote has a strong call to action that will either be educational, informative or entertaining to your audience. You can use Facebook Insights to see how many people a post has reached, which can allow you to further refine your message and improve engagement and CTR.
• Google+ – Use Hangouts on Air as a way to communicate directly to your audience online, in real time.
  Some of the following types of hangouts can be beneficial for lead generation:
  • Customer service sessions
  • Interviews with experts and leaders
  • Giveaways and contests
  • Free product demos

   

• LinkedIn – Look to use LinkedIn Groups which are made up of various subject topics that bring together professionals of similar interests to discuss subjects that relate to business. Either join an existing LinkedIn Group that is related to your area of expertise or create your own. Make sure to join discussions in the LinkedIn Groups that you’re a part of (when appropriate) and answer questions, provide resources and post relevant content. This will help you with becoming an authority and have people who ask questions about your line of business look to you for help.
• Twitter – Get involved in Twitter Chats and offer valuable insight so that you can become an authority in these chats and get your name out. You should notice that your CTR increases during these chats.
• Pinterest – If you’re a business that benefits from visuals (fashion, food, etc.), then this can be a great way to generate traffic to your site quickly as pins can spread quickly. In fact, the Harvard Business Review found 1 in 5 Pinterest users have bought something in a store after pinning or liking it on Pinterest, and 1 in 3 Pinterest users under 35 have done so. You can check out this article to learn more about using Pinterest to drive traffic to your website and generate leads.

Brand Awareness
Getting your business brand in front of the largest proportion of the most applicable target audience can be done through the use of social media, however to boosting brand awareness you’ll need to connect with bloggers and people within your industry, creating interesting content and interact with your followers.

• Create interesting content. It’s important to create content that your followers will find to be useful, interesting or humorous if you want to get them to share the content with their network. Every time one of your followers share your content, it goes out to their network of friends who might in turn decide to share it with their network, increasing your brands visibility.
• Interact with your followers. Interacting with your followers isn’t just about getting your content shared (see the above point). It’s also a good way of letting your customers know that you’re available in case they have any questions or concerns. Additionally, if your customers want to compliment or praise your business, they’re much more likely to share the compliments with their followers if you’ve been actively engaging with them.
• Connect with other bloggers. By finding other bloggers who are within your niche and connecting with them, you might give yourself a chance to market to their fan base. To connect with bloggers, try commenting on their posts, sharing their content on to your followers and joining in on conversations that they may be having on various social networks. Once you’ve established rapport, see if they’ll allow you to guest post on their blog which is yet another way to get your name out there to a new audience.

Bonus
One thing that you’ll definitely want consider doing is creating a Google+ page and publish content on a regular basis as your page and posts can show up in Google searches. To give yourself an additional SEO boost, make sure to use Google Authorship (not only can this possible help with your SEO efforts, but it can also lead to an increase in CTR).

We’d love to hear how you currently use social media for growing your business in the comments below.

Our guest blogger Josh Brown is part of the marketing team at Iconic Mind, an IT consulting firm in Maryland. Offering internet, network, software and troubleshooting services, Iconic Mind can help with increasing business productivity through the use of the latest technologies. For additional information, follow Iconic Mind on Twitter or Pinterest or visit their blog.