With the world of social media growing at exponential rates, it would be foolish to ignore the power that it can unlock for your brand or business. The reality is that thousands of internet marketers – who previously focused on creating content exclusively for blogs and blasting subscribers via email – now also use these pitches and pieces of content to reach out to social media users who share similar interests. By building an online fan base, you can connect to hundreds, thousands or even millions of others who find what you have to say interesting. One major part of cultivating social media for positive benefit is through the untold number of conversations that go on day to day. Below, we’ll explain why you should not only be using social media, but also conversing with users to build your clout.

People Come to Your Site Through Social Media

As the nature of the internet continues to evolve, many areas are experiencing phenomenal growth, while others seem to be falling behind. Social media is certainly growing at unprecedented rates, but visits to home pages for many businesses and brands continue to decline. Recent studies of the biggest websites out there show that anywhere from 20 to 50 percent fewer people are now navigating directly to their home pages. What this means isn’t that people are not visiting these sites, but in many cases, they are now accessing content directly through social media links. Every conversation on social media may present an opportunity for you to cleverly drop a link to your website or blog that features content relevant to the discussion.

Social Media Has Saturated the World

Believe it or not, but there are now more social media accounts in existence than there are people. Some of these are duplicate accounts and some are no longer active, but the general trend is one that suggests pinging search engines for benefit isn’t nearly as beneficial as it once was, while pinging users on social media produces many more benefits. You’ll be able to join conversations with people from all walks of life and engage in discussions that increase your brand’s reach with these users. While it can be difficult to reach everyone in a given community, state, country or region, it is now almost technically possible to do so.

How to Wade Into Discussions

You don’t want to come across as a spammer who is pinging search engines and users on social media with content for gain. In order to get around this, you’ll need to assess the conditions of each conversation and follow a simple routine. First, introduce your content with a paragraph or so that shows you have genuine interest in the issue; do not open by saying, “please check this out”. You also want to be sure to wade into discussions where your competitors are active – this can create a bit of tension but will definitely boost people’s awareness of your brand. Separate from the process, you also need to be able to discern which conversations are worth engaging in and which ones may harbour more negative potential than positive. Many brands like to steer clear of religion and politics, for instance.