The value of social media marketing can be a bit hazy when it comes to its ROI. How exactly does it benefit your business? This article insight will hopefully shed some light on the value of this platform to any business type.

First, did you know that Google is now tracking your brand or website’s social media activity and making this data one of the organic search ranking factors? If your social content is widely shared on social networks or you’re acquiring more traffic to your site via social media, your organic ranking results will benefit. This means better first page results and greater online visibility for your business.

Secondly, social media marketing is a great means for building brand awareness, thought leadership, and brand loyalty—all through content generation. It’s not necessarily about marketing your products and services in a traditional sense. By providing relevant and valuable content related to your products or services, you have the opportunity to engage and connect with specific audiences who will hopefully like, share, or follow your posts. With approximately 3.48 billion social media users today, this marketing platform offers great reach potential to differentiate your business or brands.

Keep in-mind, your social media initiatives can be valuable even if there’s not a direct tie to a conversion. This means a Facebook post link to your site does not have to be the direct source of an online purchase or contact submission. Possibly the prospect has been following and sharing your posts, visited your site several times and finally chose to complete a purchase or pick up the phone.  Did you know research has proven that it takes approximately seven touches to a new prospect to achieve a conversion? Social media marketing can help support your sales funnel. And, detailed analytics provided by your social channels, search engine analytics or a lead generation tool (i.e., Hubspot) can then help assess interest, nurture leads and guide your ongoing marketing strategies.

Social media posts are just one way to engage with your audience. Most social channels offer robust and economical advertising solutions that allow you to select your target prospects—not only based on general demographics, such as age, gender, and geographic location, but education level, job titles, and even interests. And, A/B testing is often built into many of the formulas so the most effective ads will be displayed. Videos options also add allow more impact and can tell your story or sell your brand in a more impelling way.

However, social media marketing cannot be effective without thorough research, planning, tracking, and ongoing measurement. Don’t just jump in blindly. Determine which social channels can best reach your target audience. Identify the goals you wish to achieve, such as brand awareness, educate, increase website traffic, etc. Then, create a strategy and content calendar that will support regularity. Finally, continue to assess and refine your strategy based on the tracking data you gather. Also, don’t take on too many channels—maybe just start with one. Quality is key. You can always add another network as you gain experience and master frequency.

Remember, look at social media marketing as one piece of the whole digital marketing arena. You have so many online platforms to market your brand. They should all have a purpose and support one another in the sales funnel. Your website should be your marketing hub where you link to, link from, build on and continue to enhance. Social media marketing can play a key role in your lead generation efforts.