7 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing is Necessary for Small Businesses [GUEST POST]

Whether you sell your products and services to consumers or other businesses, social media is a central part of any digital marketing initiative you can create. Indeed, available statistics indicate that social media marketing records a 100% higher conversion rate than similar initiatives in outbound marketing. Therefore, any business that wants to make headway in the 21st-century marketplace must design a social media marketing plan.

Ask any marketer; he will tell you that failure to invest in marketing on social media will affect many other areas of the business including search engine optimization. Some companies use social media for brand awareness, others use it as the primary way of conversing with their customers. Still, other businesses use social media as their primary method of selling their goods and services.

For small businesses, all these purposes make sense. You should, therefore, do everything in your power to make the most of your social media audience. The following are seven reasons why you should consider social media marketing for your small business.

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#1 Social media will lead to real relationship building

Social networking sites provide an ideal platform to grow a fan base of loyal customers. Employ social media best practices and experience exponential growth in the number of potential customers who engage with you on both the web and offline. View social media is a platform to grow customer relationships where you get to interact with people who love your products and services, get direct feedback from them and solve the issues they face when trying to make online purchases from your brand.

As you grow your following organically with tools like Social Growr, you get the opportunity to read posts, tweets, and status updates from people who love your organization. This information can help you better understand your target market so that you can improve your product offerings.

A review of your fan base can help you identify the types of things they buy, the things they do on holiday, the types of posts that get their attention enough to share with their friends, the websites they frequently interact with, etc. With such incredible insights, refining your products to better satisfy these customer’s satisfaction becomes quite easy. Such a relationship is extremely valuable.

Additionally, you can use social media to reach out and connect with businesses that offer complementary products and services. You can talk to these businesses about a content marketing partnership that would benefit both brands. Furthermore, social media is the perfect place to connect with influencers, journalists, and thought leaders in your industry. Truth be told, many lasting working relationships have been forged on social media and helped initially unknown brands become household names.

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#2 Social media can reduce your overall marketing costs

Over the years, it has become clear to many organizations that social media is one of today’s most cost-effective method of digital marketing. A social media marketing strategy is also relatively easy to construct compared to other digital marketing plans. What’s more, you can start a marketing campaign with a small budget and increase it as you acquire more leads and conversions. Most social media platforms will allow you to super-target your audience based on keywords, interests, and demographics.

Open up the line of communication between business owner & millions of potential customers

In a world without social media, it would be extremely difficult to get your product or service in front of potential customers across the globe. Social media gives you access to an international market, allowing you to focus your efforts on the parts of the world most interested in your brand and the goods and services it offers.

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#3 Social media ads allow targeting and retargeting

A target without clear target market wastes resources. Social media sites allow for highly customized ads where you can target an audience, serve ads, and later retarget the portion of that audience that did not convert in your first ad campaign. On Facebook, for instance, you can target users based on their location, their purchase history, pages they follow, and even their level of education.

Related: How Behavioral Targeting Can Help You Achieve Your Bottom Line

#4 Customer service on social media is going to take over

It is already happening: many firms today are using social networking sites to communicate with their customers. Indeed, many organizations have moved their customer service and support to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Customer support is now a big part of Social media marketing, especially for service-based enterprises and companies whose primary consumer base is young.

In America for example, available statistics indicate that 59% of social media users believe social networking sites have made it easier to get customer support from the businesses from which they buy. This improved accessibility further solidifies your brand as a serious player in your industry.

Related: How to Provide Effective Customer Service via Twitter?

#5 Social media posts can be used to drive targeted traffic

Take your time and craft a landing page that has the potential to convert handsomely if you can find some highly targeted traffic, then use social media to drive this traffic. It is not uncommon to find some well-placed posts on social sites like Reddit and Stumbleupon drive hundreds or even thousands of visitors to a single page on a website in a day or two.

Related: How to Use SEO To Influence B2B Buyers On Social Media

#6 A strong social media presence builds brand loyalty

Did you know that having a strong social media presence is directly proportional to having loyal customers? Without a doubt, brands that actively maintain their pages on social sites have a more loyal customer base. This is because of personalized interactions between the business and the customer, leading to growing trust and increased confidence in the products on offer.

#7 Social media marketing will get you more sales

Ultimately, a social media marketing plan’s effectiveness is measured based on its ability to deliver sales for a business. What’s more, the numbers back this claim: 70% of marketers who sell products and services directly to consumers say they have acquired new customers through social media. By interacting with potential customers on a regular basis, you prepare them for the possibility of buying your products whenever the need to buy such a product arises. Moreover, social platforms allow you to offer your customers incentives, like coupons and free stuff, to buy your goods/services.