The Importance of Social Media for Your Small Business

Social media has so much power for any business because it can help attract customers to your business, increase awareness, and so much more. If you are not taking advantage of social media as a marketing tool yet, you are missing out on a large customer base.

Today we will discuss why social media is so important for your small business and why it is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy.

Increase Brand Recognition

The best part about social media is that it is a free platform where you have the opportunity to share your voice and connect with people from all over the world. Social media helps boost brand visibility to not just your current customers but new ones too. Customers expect a business to be accessible online and is the first thing they look for when they search you online.

Improves Customer Service

Customer satisfaction should be a top priority of your business. By using social media, you can connect with your customers and see what issues they are encountering and how you can best serve them. You can develop your reputation of being a responsive and caring brand by offering support on your accounts.

Social media is a lot more friendly and approachable than calling a call center. There is less of a hassle that customers face by using social media. On your account you can make announcements and offers to customers and even see what your customers are talking about your brand and the context of it.

Boosts Your SEO

Search engines consider a business’s social media presence when determining where to rank a business on the results page. They work because they act as a doorway to your business website because they show you are human. By optimizing your social profiles, you create a strong web presence and get more exposure.

Social media search is used as the new search engines, more importantly Facebook and Twitter. Customers can discover content by searching a keyword or using hashtags to find the type of content you are posting on your page and it may win you new fans.

It is Cost Effective

Using social media can be more cost effective than using expensive traditional marketing such as an ad on a website or postcard mailers to promote your product or services. Although social media is free to use, you can invest some money into paid social advertising as your online marketing efforts. When you build an ad campaign, you should know who you are trying to reach and what your goal is, so you do not waste your money.  

Many people like to use social media to post about how much they love your product or service which this allows their friends and followers to see and can be more powerful than paying for an expensive ad.

Influencers

You can partner up with influencers that are in the same niche of your business or industry to help get more awareness of your brand and ultimately set yourself up for more sales. If you want to work with influencers that have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, you might have to pay a price.

Another option is that you can work with micro influencers, these are influencers who have hundreds or a few thousand followers. Although their following is smaller, they have a more trusting audience than someone who has a larger following. These influencers often will work with you for free or in exchange for just product or service or may charge a low fee. Either way, influencers are a great way to get potential customers and followers on your social media platforms.

You Can Get Ahead of Your Competition

If you create a plan and develop a social media campaign, you can get ahead of your competitors. Your competitors might be following traditional marketing avenues, so you have an advantage over them by using social media strategies to help you succeed.

Adds Legitimacy

Most people expect for businesses to have some form of social media account that is active. If you do not have one, people will find it rare and will be unlikely to do business with you. Social media plays a big role in helping your business seem legit.

Conclusion

Social media marketing can be really cost effective if it is done right. Even if you participate in paid ads, using paid social media campaigns rather than traditional advertising options like search engine ads are more cost effective.

If you have not created your social media accounts, now is the time. You do not need to create one for every single platform but pay attention to your customers and see which platforms they use most and start from there.