Whether you want to sell your products and services to other businesses or consumers out there, social media can be an essential element that can drive any business’s success (or failure).
In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, businesses will lose out on their profits and customers if they’re not on social media.
More recently, TechBehemoths surveyed between September 10-30, 2021, more than 300 IT companies across 14 countries to better understand the importance of social media in their digital marketing activities – How IT Companies Use Social Media in 2021 – Survey Results.
If you’re not on social media yet, you are potentially shutting out your prospects, and building brand awareness and gaining market share could be a lot more daunting and expensive.
If you’re still not convinced, here are the nine reasons your small business needs social media marketing now:
1. Establish a Brand Presence
Social media can help boost your business at a much larger scale, enabling you to be more accessible and recognizable to prospects you otherwise couldn’t reach.
Also, the more active you are on these social media platforms, the more you’ll be likely to gain more followers. People will become more and more interested over time if your business continues to send out new information.
Likewise, they wouldn’t be as interested in someone that doesn’t regularly send out content.
According to Voy Media, “The more active and more open you are on social media, the more likely that you’ll be able to grow your following. By doing this, you’ll be able to grow your business successfully in the long run.”
2. Increase Your Visibility on Google Search
Chances are, your prospects are already searching in Google to find more information about your business. One of the greatest advantages of social media is that it lets you blanket the first page of Google with the web pages that you control.
Let’s say, you search up your company name, and you’re reviewing the first page of Google. If you already have a Facebook business page up, then there is an increased chance that it will be ranking on the first page. If you have other social media accounts such as LinkedIn or Twitter, then those pages could rank as well.
So, the more pages that you control on search results, the better will be the chance for a prospect to click on one of your pages.
Social media can also boost your site’s search engine rankings in other non-brand keywords. It helps your site gain more exposure, leading to links from other sites, which helps boost your rankings.
3. Establish Brand Credibility
From answering questions on Quora to joining Facebook groups, social media gives you plenty of opportunities to demonstrate your experience in your expertise. Through answering questions and sharing important information, you’ll be able to show your skills and knowledge.
Using this strategy regularly improves your brand reach, and helps build trust among your audience. Being established in social media plays a key role in creating a brand, make you appear more professional, and legit.
Also, people will look you up on social media and see how active you are. After all, your social media profiles is a way of establishing your authority.
For instance, a company with 10,000 followers appears to be more credible than a company with only a mere 200 followers.
Here are the most common outcomes the moment prospects will look you up online:
- They won’t find anything there and will instantly lose trust in your brand.
- They find your social media profile and find out that it isn’t active. Again, you lost a few trust points.
- They search for your social media profiles, find out that you’re active, and learn about the values and culture of your business. This leads to greater brand recognition and trust over time because social media allows you to connect with your audience at a much deeper level.
4. Connect with Your Audience
Social media is the ultimate focus group. It helps you get to know your customers more by engaging and connecting with them online.
Once you listen to your customer’s needs and understand how they interact, you can create real relationships as you connect with them at a much deeper, more personal level. It’s also easier to position yourself as a resource by sharing helpful and relevant information to them.
It’s also vital to note that most people see social media like social networks and not marketing machines. Meaning, they don’t like the feeling that they’re being pitched to. Instead, what they’re looking for is engagement.
When you stop seeing social media as a way to pitch to your customers and start finding a way to connect with them, you’ll be able to transform your brand over time.
You’re helping consumers by answering their questions, informing and engaging them with relevant content, and even form deeper bonds with shared interests.
You’re also building connections, not only with consumers but with industry experts and influencers in your niche. Over time, you’re more than just a brand. Instead, you’re part of a larger community.
And once you go with the best practices on social media, you’ll be getting lots of exposure. That exposure helps bring in more leads. Those leads will turn to followers, followers into customers, and customers into dedicated brand evangelists, continuing the cycle.
5. Get Ahead of Your Competitors
Do you know that 70% of small businesses are already using social media? Chances are, most of your competitors are already there, targeting your audience.
While most of your competition is already on social media, you can still gain a competitive advantage. Why? Because most small businesses are still relatively new to the social media game
Meaning, you still have plenty of opportunities to play it smart and be strategic. Aside from that, social media also allows you to keep track of your competition. If your competition is still not yet on social media, then you already have the advantage to get there first.
6. Expand Your Audience Reach
Without social media, your site’s inbound traffic is just connected with your existing customers. With social media, you’re able to expand your reach at a much larger scale.
The content that you post on your social media profiles can help boost your site traffic. Also, every image, video, or blog posts that you share on social media improves your site traffic, which gives plenty of opportunity for conversion.
7. Provide Strong Customer Service
Customers expect businesses to be available for customer support. In fact, more than half of social media users in the US say that social media has made it convenient to get customer support from businesses, some of them even interacting with businesses on social media networks.
Because social media channels are largely available all day, and every single day, it’s easier for people to raise concerns, offer comments and suggestions, and ask questions. It also enables you to respond to them in a direct and timely manner.
When you provide customer service on social media, you’re showing how attentive you are with your customer’s needs, and give them the best customer experience as possible.
The more responsive and engaging you are with your audience; they are more likely to be loyal to your business. It may even go as far as recommending your business to other people.
8. Cost-Effective Advertising
Highly complex and costly advertising campaigns are no longer needed to spread the word about you and your brand.
Even on sites like Facebook and Twitter, the cost per 1000 impressions can be as low as a dollar. Meaning, your business can reach a lot of users with just minimal marketing costs.
Although it might sound so simple, throwing in an ad here and there will not lead you to the kind of conversions and leads that you’re looking for. In fact, you need a strategy that’s cleverly crafted to make your ad effective.
9. Improve Conversion Rates
Every social media interaction that you create exemplifies a new touchpoint between your new and existing customers. Thus, it gives you plenty of opportunities to be able to meet their needs through your products and services.
For instance, when you shared a link to your brand new product on your Facebook page, every click creates an opportunity for someone to click and buy your product.
Through multiple posts on social media, you’re boosting your sales dramatically, with very little effort. Aside from the content that you share, the engagement that you get from your followers will mean more conversions from your brand, too.
You need to utilize social media as a way to connect and communicate with people who are interested in buying from your business, by answering whatever questions they may have and incentivizing them.
10. Challenges
33% of companies face budget problems in their social media activity, while the other 33% think that targeting is the main issue. Conversion is also considered a challenge for most companies that use social media for advertising and marketing – How IT Companies Use Social Media in 2021 – Survey Results.
Over to You
So there you have it. Social media is the most effective and yet cost-effective methods to reach your already existing and prospective customers. It supplies your brand or business with a human voice and giving you a competitive edge over your toughest competitors with only very little time and money. Just make sure that you select the right social platforms coupled with a powerful social media strategy.
About the Author – Kevin Urrutia is the founder of Voy Media, a Facebook Ads Agency based in New York. He helps businesses maximize the benefits of Facebook Advertising, leading to a dramatic improvement in sales while pushing down costs. Voy Media thoroughly studies each client and comes up with tailor-fit solutions to bring about the best results.
9 Reasons Your Small Businesses Needs Social Media Marketing
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