Is your business on social media? You’d think it would be a given these days, with ‘social commerce’ (using social media to drive commercial transactions) becoming more prevalent around Australia every year.
The fact is though, there are a lot of companies and SMB’s out there who aren’t leveraging the power of social media in their sales efforts. The truth is, social media is how consumers research and communicate these days. If you’re not using social media to promote your products to customers, create awareness about your business and engage with the consumer market, you’re missing out.
The Sensis Social Media Report is an annual report on the social media landscape in Australia. It has some truly interesting statistics and insights into social media and consumers which are very relevant to businesses of all sizes. Let’s look at a few.
Social media use. Around 79% of Australians use social media every day, with 31% checking it more than ten times a day. The average Australian Facebook user accesses it 29 times per week. If we quantify it in terms of time, the average Australian spends eight hours a week on Facebook. That’s an entire working day of an Australian consumers week which businesses have the opportunity to market to them.
Social media reasons. While social media is largely used for sharing photographs and videos and catching up with friends and family, a large percent of users log on for commerce related activities. 23% use it to find out about brands, businesses, offers or promotions, while 11% use it to engage with brands about a customer service issue.
Social media consumer behaviour. If an Australian is researching a product on social media, 61% of the time it leads to them making a purchase. This is a massive indication that businesses should be using social media to inform and engage consumers. What’s more, before making a purchase anywhere, a third of consumers will look at a business’s social media channel.
Building brand trust through social media. 39% of Australians follow brands or businesses on social media. More than half of the people surveyed by Sensis said that a positive engagement with a brand or business increases their level of trust with them. A similar number said regular content that’s engaging and relevant builds trust in a brand.
Organic reach. If a consumer likes the content created by a brand, 25% of the time they’ll share it to their own group of contacts and followers. This is an extremely potent method for a brand to expand the reach of their content.
Ratings and reviews on social media. 43% of Australians rate and review products or brands they use on social media channels. 68% say they read these reviews if they’re interested in a product or service. It certainly pays to run your business in a manner which makes people happy to review your business online, and most importantly give it a positive review.
At The Henry Wong Team® we strongly believe in the power of social media, particularly in Facebook. This platform has over 2.8 million users worldwide, including over 15 million Australians. That’s a lot of people that turn to Facebook every day, putting trust in the content it displays for them.
It’s not just that they have such a big user base, Facebook is the platform that works best for businesses. This is because they use consumer behaviour patterns more effectively than any other social media platform as well as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. Their complex algorithms help serve you ads that interest you or relate to you. The accuracy of their advertising system leads to the building of targeted awareness and hence greater conversions for business.
If you have any questions about using social media to gain more sales or create engagement and reach with your brand, get in touch with The Henry Wong Team®. Social media is one of the cornerstones of our real estate marketing efforts, and we have large, engaged audiences across multiple platforms, including over 10,000 followers on Facebook.
