Today, 4.62 million people use social media, making up 58.4 percent of the global population, according to a 2022 study. Over the past year, users grew an impressive 10.1 percent, adding 424 million users to the various social media platforms. And with users averaging almost 2.5 hours on social media daily, that’s quite an audience for your business.

The most popular sites? Facebook leads the way with 2.9 billion users, with YouTube, What’s App, and Instagram coming in second, third, and fourth. TikTok is also seeing rapid growth, just recently topping one billion users.

And social media users aren’t just scrolling and posting. They’re also shopping. Just over 26 percent of social media users aged 16 to 64 state that their primary reason for using social media is to buy products. Let’s take Instagram as an example. While searching, 83 percent of users discover new services or products on the platform. 

With vast audiences and inexpensive (or free) advertising, you may be missing out on effectively engaging with customers or clients, boosting your brand along with your bottom line. Keep reading to learn more about how sharing quality content on social media can benefit your business.

8 Benefits of Sharing Content on Social Media

1. Increase Brand Awareness

One of the top benefits of sharing quality content on social media? A noticeable spike in your brand’s awareness. Where business accounts on social media platforms were once nice to have, supplementing your marketing plans. Today, sharing content on social media is critical to your business’s relevance and success. In other words, building a presence on social media matters. 

When focusing on brand awareness, you should make potential customers aware of your brands and services while distinguishing yourself from the competition. But just don’t use social media as an advertising platform – essentially just re-promoting services or products you offer. Instead, through social media, you can create a human connection with your customers – showing them who you are and what you stand for.

For example, you can connect by showing how existing customers use your products and how they impact their lives. Also, you can highlight your employees, showing what it’s like to work for your company through videos, pictures, and text. Prioritizing customer connections on social media helps to boost your brand’s awareness.

2. Authentically Connect With Clients

Social media makes it easy to connect with your customers through social media likes, comments, and direct messages. By interacting with your ideal customer, you have the opportunity to showcase your authenticity – showing your humanness.

Through authenticity, you not only build trust and connection with your customers and employees, but you can engage with your audience, showing that there are “real” people behind your business profile. According to Gartner, authenticity is a powerful driver for customer trust, along with warmth and dependability. A company can demonstrate authenticity “by aligning its stated values with actions, such as taking steps to support corporate responsibility.”

3. Establish Company As A Thought Leader

By regularly posting quality content on social media, you can establish your credibility as an industry thought leader. In addition, by promoting content across a couple of social media platforms, you can highlight your well-researched work or your professional opinion, showcasing your expertise in your field and making you a go-to resource for your niche.

For example, LinkedIn may be better for establishing thought leadership than Facebook, but don’t limit yourself to just one platform. Consider posting videos to YouTube or how-to graphics to Instagram, enabling you to broaden your audience.

Through social media, you can also keep an ear to the ground, staying abreast of industry news. Further, you can connect with other industry leaders, adding to your credibility and advancing your knowledge through discussions with other experts.

4. Attract More Website Visitors

Posting content on social media also helps you to attract more website visitors. For example, by posting entertaining and informative blog content, you can drive traffic to your website, generating leads and boosting sales.

Be sure to include your website’s address on your blog posts, articles, or white papers, allowing readers to visit your site with one click. Talk about an easy and low-cost way to drive traffic to your website!

5. Targeted Advertising 

When posting content on social media, don’t feel as if you should connect with “everyone” when building your brand. Instead, try targeted marketing, allowing you to narrowly define your ideal customer, targeting those profiles regionally, nationally, or globally. 

Buying inexpensive social media ads allows you to promote and distribute your content to the right audience, making the most of your time and money. Many employers find this highly effective, and the numbers prove it. In 2022, companies are expected to spend just over $56 billion in the U.S. on advertising and promoting products and services on social media. 

When targeting your audience, you can choose between locations, gender, age, language, geography, culture, hobbies, and online behaviors, allowing you to craft specific content for your defined audience.

6. Boost Social Recruiting

Attracting top talent and boosting social recruiting is another valuable result of sharing quality content on social media. Although job boards are still used, social recruiting gives you the bandwidth to showcase who you are and what you offer. 

Through visual and written stories, you can demonstrate to potential job candidates what it would be like to work at your company, helping you build a recruiting pipeline. And even if you’re not advertising open positions or career opportunities, you can attract passive talent through expressing your organization’s voice and personality. 

For example, you can use video to showcase what your employees’ day-to-day activities are like, focusing on different teams or locations. Also, you can do a social media takeover, a form of influencer marketing. This is a creative way to help increase your brand exposure while providing interesting and engaging content.

With almost 80 percent of job seekers using social media to look for jobs, companies should prioritize recruitment when creating their social media strategies.

7. Promote Employee Advocacy

When promoting content on social media, encourage your employees to post quality content, giving way to employee advocacy. Employee advocacy is when the workers promote the company by sharing information or experiences.

For example, add employee testimonials to your career page, giving job seekers some organic insight into your organization. Also, you can pose questions to your employees (on video), letting them answer in their own words.  For instance, you can ask:

• What does an inclusive workplace mean to you?
• What values does the organization have that make you want to work here?
• What do you look forward to at work?
• What does your average day look like?
• What gets you most excited about coming to work?
• What’s your favorite part of working with the company’s team?

These open-ended questions give your employees a chance to showcase your organization while keeping it real. 
When employees share informational content or positive stories, they serve as brand ambassadors, increasing your brand’s awareness and building credibility. A recent study found that employee advocacy “positively impacts human capital in several ways, including talent acquisition, employee retention, engagement, and productivity.” Further, employee advocacy can help to “shape an organization’s reputation.”

8. Reach A Larger Audience

Through publishing solid content on social media platforms, you can also reach a larger audience, which in turn grows your brand and expands your talent pool. Here are some things to consider when growing your audience on social media:

• Share a photo or video with your post. It catches the eyes of scrollers while making your text more interesting.
• Engage your audience through meaningful comments and interactions.
• Provide meaningful, helpful, and entertaining content, giving people a reason to follow you.
• Use hashtags. Don’t be afraid to get creative!
• Focus on organic growth – which will come with consistent posting. 

As you regularly engage with your audience, you can continually refine your social media strategy.

—

Showcasing quality content on social media not only helps you build a strong employer brand while connecting with your audience, attracting more website visitors, boosting social recruiting, and promoting employee advocacy – to name a few. Content is definitely still king, but knowing how to use it to grow your company is priceless.