Six Benefits of Social Media Marketing, and How to Do It Well

For most businesses the question is no longer whether to have a social media presence. The question is how to run one that people respond to. Platforms add features, change names and adjust how posts are shown, but the underlying behavior stays steady: people spend part of every day there, they talk to one another, and they expect businesses to talk back.

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, TikTok and Nextdoor each draw a different mix of people, and each rewards a different style of post. Which ones deserve your time depends on where your customers actually spend theirs. A contractor, a clinic and a restaurant in the Atlanta area will not end up with the same plan, and they should not try to. What they share is the need to give people a reason to notice them, remember them and eventually respond.

1. People get to know your name

Awareness is the first benefit. A business that posts useful, shareable material regularly keeps its name and its look in front of people who may not need it today but will someday. When someone comments on, shares or saves a post, it can be shown to people who do not follow you yet, so a good post has a chance to introduce you to a new circle of potential customers. The work is in the consistency: a steady rhythm of posts people care about does more than a burst of activity followed by silence.

2. You reach beyond the customers you already have

Without a social presence, the people who find you are mostly the people who already know you. Social platforms let you meet people who are not searching for you by name, through what they follow, share and talk about. Posts that point to a page on your own website, such as a booking page, a menu or a quote request form, give that new attention somewhere useful to land.

3. A human voice makes it easier to say yes

People like doing business with people. A business that comments, answers questions and shows the work behind the counter is easier to trust than a logo that only publishes announcements. That trust will not close a sale by itself, but it removes some of the hesitation that sits between interest and action, and moving people past hesitation is what advertising is for.

4. Service questions get answered in public

Customers ask questions, report problems and compliment businesses on social platforms, often from a phone in the middle of the day. A prompt, personal reply shows the person asking that someone is paying attention, and it shows everyone else reading along how you treat people. Reviews deserve the same attention, which is the subject of the post on customer reviews.

5. Regular contact builds loyalty

Most businesses want repeat customers, and repeat customers come from satisfaction plus steady contact. Social media gives you a low-pressure way to stay in touch between purchases: a seasonal reminder, a look behind the scenes, a thank-you, a new arrival. Because it is a two-way channel, it also lets loyal customers tell you what they would like more of.

6. Consistency builds credibility

When people see that you post regularly, answer comments and share original material instead of recycled filler, your business looks established and attentive. Satisfied customers also tend to mention the businesses they like, tagging them or recommending them to friends, which is advertising you did not have to buy. Credibility like that is earned slowly and lost quickly, so it pays to protect it.

Most social media problems trace back to a handful of habits. These are worth getting right first.

Do

• Write for your customers, not for yourself. Build your pages around what your audience wants to see, not around what you personally find interesting.
• Be active without overwhelming people. Post often enough to stay familiar, and ask questions that invite an answer.
• Vary the posts. Change the angle, the format or the audience segment from one post to the next, so your page shows personality instead of repeating itself.
• Treat comments and messages as customer service. Reply with the same care you would give a customer standing at your counter.
• Experiment and keep notes. Try different ways of presenting the same material, then repeat what draws a response and drop what does not.

Don’t

• Ignore your audience. A question left unanswered tells the person asking that nobody is listening.
• Delete legitimate complaints. Acknowledge them in public, then move the details to a private conversation. Removing spam or abusive content is a different matter, and it is reasonable.
• Automate everything. Scheduling posts ahead of time is fine. Canned replies, and machine-written answers that do not address the question, make a business sound as if no one is home.
• Post identical material everywhere. Each platform has its own formats and habits, and repeating one message on all of them wears out your followers.
• Manufacture applause. Skip liking your own posts, and never buy followers or likes. Invite employees to share what they would genuinely want to share.

Everyday posting builds familiarity. Paid promotion puts a specific message in front of a chosen audience on a schedule you control, and two platforms come up often for local businesses.

X, formerly Twitter, lets advertisers promote a post so that people beyond their own followers see it. You choose who sees the promotion using the targeting options the platform offers, such as location and interests. A promoted post that sends people to a landing page works well when the post and the page make the same promise. Four habits hold up well:

• Keep it short and specific. You get a moment to stop a scroll. A pointed question or a concrete statement about what you offer does that better than technical wording that makes people stop and decode it.
• Make the next step obvious. Tell people what happens when they tap, and check that the link works and the page loads quickly on a phone.
• Use your audience’s own words. People share what sounds as if it was written for them.
• Add a real image or video. A visual helps a post stand out in a crowded feed, provided it shows something true about what you do.

Ads on Facebook and Instagram are built in Meta’s advertising tools, and the same principles apply: a clear offer, a defined audience and a way to see which version of the ad produces a response. The post on creating an effective Facebook ad goes through that process step by step.

Kirk Donovan Enterprises is an Atlanta-area advertising agency, founded in 1984, and its work covers traditional media as well as digital channels, social networking among them. Mason Donovan grew up in the advertising and marketing world, is a child of the digital age and has a strong understanding of how traditional media drives people to digital. That link between the two worlds is worth keeping in mind as you plan posts.

Think about what happens after someone hears a radio spot, passes a billboard or watches a television commercial. Some of those people pick up a phone and look the business up. What they find on your social profiles either confirms what they just heard or contradicts it, so the voice, the offer and the look of your posts should match the rest of your advertising. Social media does more when it is one part of a larger mix in which each piece points to the next.

The social media marketing page describes the service in more detail. For channels that work alongside social, such as search and email, browse the digital marketing topic in the blog.