Why Do Small Businesses Need Social Media?
It’s safe to say that this tool has infiltrated many aspects of our daily lives, and this is precisely what makes it so advantageous for small businesses. Becoming active on social media as a business is one of the best ways to interact your audience through something they use daily. It’s much easier to build trust with potential and current clients when you’ve made a good impression online. People often make snap judgments on whether or not a business is trustworthy based on their online presence. A potential client is likely to skip across a business if their social media accounts are sitting idle (btw, this is proven)! If you post frequently, they will feel at ease knowing your business can be reached if there were ever a problem. You will also look like you’re in business. For example, think of you Facebook page as your storefront window (if you don’t have a storefront, just imaging you do). If a potential customer is walking by and the lights are shut off, the store is basically empty, and they can’t see anyone, they’re probably not going to want to walk in and you won’t look open, would you? Aside from this, your number of followers, frequency of posts, quality of reviews, and how your business interacts with others are all things that clients consider.
Why Bother?
One of the best things about social media is that it is essentially free. Of course, there are options to pay for promotion on social media, but you have limitless opportunities to interact with clients and build your reputation without spending money. Individuals are turning to social media to get recommendations for services and products more than ever! By being listed as a verified business, you will be easily found on directory listings (ex: Google) that further enhance your visibility online.
With social media, you will reach all kinds of individuals who wouldn’t have come across your product or service otherwise.
You can easily make business updates to inform your potential and current clients about any changes, which saves you time and money. The possibilities are endless when it comes to utilizing social media for small businesses.
How Do the Numbers Stack Up?
We all know that social media is used more widely and frequently than ever before, but just how many people are using these tools? In 2019, it is predicted that there will be nearly 2.77 billion users on social media around the world. This is a steady increase from 2.46 billion users in 2017. Here are the number of users on each social media platform as of 2018. Facebook: 1.47 billion
Instagram: 1 billion
Twitter: 335 million
Pinterest: 250 million
Google +: 198 million
Reaching Your Audience
It’s safe to say that there are certain platforms that work better for certain businesses. Facebook is a great place to start out, as it is beneficial for all types of businesses. Once you’ve figured out your target audience, it should be a bit easier to figure out which social media platforms will be the most suitable for your business. If you’re looking to attract millennials to your product or service, properly utilizing Instagram is one of the best strategies to take on. Instagram is especially effective for industries in the food service industry such as restaurants and coffee shops.Think about the Instagram-worthy possibilities! Cheese pulls, coffee pouring, fries falling from the ceiling (ok, now we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but you get the point). The point is, think about your audience and who you want to expose your business to. Does your target audience include women? Pinterest is one of the most popular social media outlets for this audience. Are you marketing your business to other businesses? LinkedIn is geared toward professionals. Figure out which audiences you’re trying to focus your marketing on, and build your social media strategy from there.
The Strategy
Last but not least, not only is i important to be present on social media, but it is equally as important to execute it with a well-thought out STRATEGY (one of my favorite words, hence the all caps)! When you are posting on social media, you want to represent your brand properly. What you want to avoid is your social media profiles to look like you vomitted all of the information inside your head on to your feed. What information do you REALLY care about? What questions could you answer before they’re asked? What do people want to see? Aside from this, let’s make a plan for the imaery. What colors represent your business? What tone to you want to put out there?
Yes, we know, there is so much to think about. But that is really what makes this all fun! Well, at least we think so.
Natalie Thibault
Owner of Inque Media