Small Businesses

Social Media Great for Small Businesses

in Small Businesses

More and more small businesses are getting into social media. Of course, you don’t just start tweeting – you need to have a plan, or a social media strategy. How much are you willing to spend (in time and/or in dollars)? What are your goals? Are your competitors using social media? Are your prospects?

These questions should be answered before you dive into the social media scene. The last thing you want is to create your social media accounts without having a plan for filling them with content, then end up with a dormant blog or with repeating the same tweet over and over again because you don’t know what to say.

Assuming your target market uses social media, you should use it too. Costs are low, especially compared with other marketing channels, and entry is easy. While you should adjust your expectations and remember that social media is very good at giving you exposure and enhancing your brand, but in many cases not so good at generating leads, you can still gain a lot from participating in social media.

My small business customers gain customer loyalty. They gain followers who talk about them in social media and recommend them to others. They gain a fan base that in most cases isn’t huge, but is very targeted, loyal and vocal. They gain the ability to listen in to social media conversations that mention their brand – and intervene immediately, if needed, to make things right.

I strongly suspect that many of the 17% of small businesses who reported that their business has not benefited from social media, did not use the best channels for them, did not use them correctly (the right content makes a difference), or simply did not give it enough time.

As a small business owner, social media offers you some very real benefits, for a relatively low cost. If your customers use social media, you should absolutely use social media too.

25% Of Small businesses Are Using Social Media

in Small Businesses

According to a recent report, 25% of small businesses now have a branded social network page and 41% are using social networks to advertise and promote their businesses.

I can’t say I’m surprised – in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this number doubles two years from now. I said it before: just like websites moved from “nice to have” into “must have” for businesses in the early nineties, the same is going to happen with social media accounts.

They are still considered as a “nice addition” if you have the time and budget by many small businesses, and some small businesses flat out refuse to admit that social media offers them any value whatsoever and insist that it’s “just a phase,” but more and more small businesses are realizing that NOT using social media has costs too – and they are not willing to pay those costs.

The main three reasons small businesses are embracing social media:

1. Consumers are there. It makes sense that if your prospects use social media, you would want to be there too.

2. Their competitors are there. Allowing your prospects and your competitors to play together in the social media field while standing on the sideline doing nothing would be insane.

3. The recession has forced small businesses to become more creative in their marketing. When a marketing budget needs to be stretched, online marketing – accessible and relatively cheap, is a great solution.

Interestingly, half of the business owners surveyed said that social media marketing takes more time than they had expected. Again, can’t say I’m surprised – social media is about building and nurturing relationships and to do it properly you need to invest time.

It IS possible in my opinion to limit your time on social media to no more than 10 minutes a day (certainly no more than an hour!) and get great results, and certainly hiring a social media consultant is an option too if you’d rather use your time doing something else for your business.

Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

Social media works well for small businesses. It’s not just for large corporations with a large budget. In fact, starting a social media campaign is very affordable (much more so than traditional advertising) and so the use of social media is especially suited for a small business. Four things you should be doing today to [...]

Read the full article →