Social – A Key Ingredient For Your Inbound Marketing Recipe

Social – A Key Ingredient For Your Inbound Marketing Recipe:from Business 2 Community by Virginia Bussey

When you hear Inbound Marketing, what do you think of first? Content, right? It is undeniable that content is a major ingredient for inbound marketing. It’s easy to forget, though, that it is only ONE of many ingredients in the inbound marketing recipe for success.

There are many elements of an Inbound Marketing Recipe. For example, there are landing pages, calls-to-action, emails, social media, and many more. And just like any food recipe, when you forgo an ingredient, it tends to come out a little off or even worse – an utter failure. Social media is often that forgone inbound marketing ingredient but it is actually a major contributor to finding your inbound marketing success.

Below are 5 key reasons you should be sure to “bake-in” social in your inbound marketing recipe.

Do Something With Your Content

Think about the famous quote, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Ask yourself the same thing about your content. If you create content and no one is around to read it, does it exist? 

Creating the content isn’t enough. You must share your content to ensure it gets found and read. It just so happens that social media is one of the easiest ways to share content across a large audience size. And even more so, it is one of the easiest ways for others to share your content, as well.

Provide a Source for Leads

Social media is one potential source for leads and additional traffic. By consistently and frequently providing these links, you give social media users the opportunity to convert into leads. Even more so, depending on your buyer personas, they can be very engaged leads.

It all starts with you sharing the content on your social media, though. Unless you tell them, prospective customers won’t know the delicious nuggets you have to share.  So share to the masses and get some leads!

Be Engaging

Sharing content on social media isn’t just about getting leads, it can engage your current customers. Social media allows you to continue the conversation with them even when you aren’t on calls or providing them with your products.

Through social media you can give your customers great content and update them on any company or product news. Engaging your customers on your social media accounts doesn’t have to stop there. You can delight your customers with specials, prizes, or contests too. Any opportunity you have to turn your customers into company enthusiasts, you should take. Company enthusiasts often turn into additional referrals for your business.

Gain Authority on Search Engines

Using social media to share links to your blog articles, landing pages, and other website pages provides additional inbound links to your site. And do you know what inbound links mean for your website? You got it – more authority on search engines. And do you know what more authority on search engines means? Bingo – higher organic search rankings.

I like to think of inbound links like an election. The more votes you have, the more likely you’ll win. Sharing links to your website through your company’s social media accounts will give your website additional inbound links. By doing so, it also gives you the opportunity to be recognized by other businesses and potentially get shared by them. These additional links mean even more inbound links, which in turn means a higher likelihood of improving your organic search engine rankings.

Consider your Reputation

And lastly, consider what it looks like to your potential and current customers for you to not be active on social media. Not being active could make your company look dated, apathetic, or even worse, closed.

If for no other reason, you should be active on Facebook to maintain and improve your company reputation and image.

Social media can be an important part to your inbound marketing plan. Social is like the sugar in a cake recipe.

How does your inbound marketing cake taste?

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