The Power of Social Media Marketing in Small Business
Over the past few years, the use of social media is growing at an incredibly fast and impressive rate. In fact, social media has become part of everybody’s life. It does not matter whether you love or hate social media, but the truth is, the time has changed and social media has certainly changed that lives of most people living in the golden age of digital technology. Easy, convenient, and free global communication seemed to be impossible in the last decades, but with the development of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, made global interaction seemingly possible with just a few clicks of your mouse.
The Impact of Social Media in the Business World
As an entrepreneur, the age of social media has brought a lot of advantages when it comes having a business, if only you know how to use it properly and effectively. Unlike the past decades, starting and maintaining a business can be a daunting task, especially if you do not have a lot of monetary resources to pay for promotion and marketing campaigns. Before the development of social media, most businesses depend heavily on television and radio advertisements, business flyers, direct mails, and creative brochures to introduce their products and/or services to their target customers in the market.
However, things have changed and for many mom-and-pop businesses that cannot afford to pay for the advertisement of their products, Facebook and Twitter have become their great tools not only in product launch but also in boosting brand recognition. For the passing years, social media has proven to be valuable because the people we transact business with and how we promote our products and/or services have moved increasing online.
Truly, the use of social media has brought a lot of benefits in the life of entrepreneurs and other business people. Here are some of the ways how social media has made some amazing impact in the business world:
- Social media helped in opening new business opportunities for both customers and business owners.
- Social media is a great tool that helps in establishing a closer connection and relationship between the company and its target customers. Hence, business people have successfully provided better customer services and quality products more than ever.
- By using social media effectively, it can help you turn a prospect into a paying customer. Aside from that, it also boosts customer loyalty that they recommend your products and/or business to their family and friends.
- It improves customer retention. According to Tom Funk, the author of the “Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More, there is a 67 percent of the Twitter community who follows a certain brand have been found to purchase the products offered by the company. This is because online entrepreneurs are able to send an essential message about the value of their brand, which is crucial for positive word of mouth. When this happens, it will be easier for the company to establish a better and solid connection with its customers which will ultimately result in strong customer loyalty.
- The use of social media affects how your target customers see your brand. Creating a social media profile for your business can be used as a strategy in building and increasing brand awareness because you allow your brand to be more transparent to your customers so that they can get to know more not only your brand but the core values of your companies. Moreover, your business’s social media profile is a great way to shape and influence your customer’s purchase decision-making.
- Social media helps in the market research of your company. Oftentimes, a startup company conducts a market research for the purpose of gathering important information about its target customers and markets. Today, social media has become a great and reliable way to examine culture, lifestyle and perception influence the market trends and consumer behavior. Hence, social media can be utilized by business people as an effective tool in profiling of your target customers and for the creation of advertising and marketing strategies.
Amazing Advantages of Social Media Marketing
According to an article that is published in the Social Media Examiner, “About 96 percent of marketers are currently participating in social media marketing, bu 85 percent of participants are not sure which tools are the best to use.”
When you know how to effectively combine the use of social media with your marketing plan, you ensure that your business will reach new heights when it comes to growth and success. Social media marketing is more than just a hype. In fact, marketing experts that it should be one of the most substantial parts of a business’ marketing strategies today. With all advantages offered by social media, it is easy to see why it is considered to be one of the most crucial elements in making your business successful.
So if you are one of the people who are unsure of how the use of social media marketing can be beneficial for your business, we have provided you a rundown of the advantages of social media marketing:
Increased Traffic
Prior to the development of social media, it was difficult for businesses to increase their inbound traffic. Oftentimes, the inbound traffic depends on the existing customers. When you use social media as part of your marketing strategy, you help people get familiar with your brand and reach new customers outside the circle of your loyal customers. Moreover, social media marketing allows you to add diversity to your marketing mix in your official business website. You can also incorporate targeted blog posts that are designed to attract new customers into your clientele. An increase in traffic means increased ranking on the search engine.
Outstanding Customer Service
More than 67 percent of consumers visit the social media for customer service because it allows online businesses to answer and provide quick solutions to any questions and concerns from the customers. Oftentimes, online businesses who are into social media marketing have a 24/7 customer service to ensure that any question and problems are addressed quickly as possible.
According to an article that is published in Forbes.com, “71 percent of consumers who receive a quick response on social media say they are more likely to recommend that brand to other people.”
Boost Conversion Rates
Generating conversion around your brand, products, and services is one of the most important goals of every entrepreneur. A perfect way to achieve this is through a strong social media marketing as it helps boost not only conversion rates but also sales. It is believed that regular customer engagement and timely services are the factors in the increase in sales of companies who choose to sell their products and/or services on social media.
Easy Distribution of Content
Social media has always been an important part of content marketing as it is the perfect channel to distribute contents that can influence the perception of your target customer on your company and brand. Before, one of the main challenges faced by the marketer is how to share their contents with their customers in the shortest possible time, but with today’s social media, marketers can easily distribute blog posts with just a few clicks of a button.
Increase the Value of Your Products and/or Services
The effective use of social media marketing is a great way to add the value of the products and services that are offered by your company. A few years ago, it would take a couple of months, if not years, for a business to strengthen the value proposition of their offerings in the mind of their target customers. Aside from that, they also have to invest a fortune to market and promote their products and/or services through different advertisement platforms.
Sample Social Media Marketing Plan and Strategies that You Can Download and Use as Reference
Although the process of developing an effective and powerful social media marketing plan can be overwhelming and daunting, we aim to make the whole process of creating and developing a plan a lot easier for you. Consider the following sample templates and download the ones which you think is the closest to your social media marketing purpose.
Free Social Media Plan Template Download
marketingsherpa.com
Social Media Marketing Plan for Small Business Free PDF Template
docs.lib.purdue.edu
Social Media Marketing Plan for Non Profits PDF Format Free Download
business.nd.edu
Social Media Marketing Plan Sample
actionplan.com
Social Media Marketing Research Template
quirks.com
Creating Social Media Marketing Plan Template
exacttarget.com
Format of Social Media Marketing Plan in Education Free Download
home.edweb.net
Social Media Digital Marketing Plan Free PDF Format Download
bedynamic.ie
Sample Social Media Marketing Plan PDF
een.edu
Final Thoughts
Social media offers a treasure of benefits that can help you grow your business in success. Know how to take advantage of this marketing technique and you do not have to worry about paying a penny for product or service promotion. You may want to check out out social media action plan templates, as well as SEO marketing plan before you leave this article. These templates can be downloaded for free and you can use them to guide you in customizing your social media marketing plan.
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