AOL Messenger, one of the first platforms for social media, revolutionised the early internet in the 1990s. Instant messaging, email, chat rooms, discussion forums, and other real-time communication tools were available to users for use with both friends and complete strangers. Since then, social media has expanded and developed to permeate almost every facet of our digital existence, affecting everything from how and what we buy to our professional networks to how we express ourselves.
What is social media?
Any digital platform, application, or piece of software that enables users to publish and share a range of content online, such as text posts, videos, images, and articles, is referred to as social media. Millions of people use the most widely used social media sites in the US, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook Messenger, for social networking and communication. People and organisations exchange ideas and information online through social media networks.
Social media platforms are frequently used by ecommerce businesses to market their goods and services, interact with current and potential customers, and increase brand recognition and awareness in the hopes of gaining followers and more. This may be especially useful for small businesses trying to increase their customer base on a budget. Social media posts can include anything from the day and time of an e-commerce product launch to a poll or survey on the newest item concept to increase online sales. Businesses can use particular social media channels to share customer reviews, communicate with customers through messaging, and post videos in order to raise brand awareness and gain more followers thanks to the variety of platforms and their functionality.
3 benefits of using social media for small businesses
1. Cost-effective promotion
2. Real-time updates
3 .Relationship building
Social media offers a significant opportunity to interact with current customers, discover new customer bases, market products and services, and establish your brand because of its extensive reach and interactive nature. The following are three advantages of using social media for small businesses:
1. Cost-effective promotion
The fact that many social media platforms are free to use is a significant advantage. This means that you can easily sign up, advertise your company, and develop a following for free to aid in bringing in new clients. Social media advertising also offers the option of paid marketing campaigns, which are frequently more affordable than more conventional forms of advertising like print or television ads.
2. Real-time updates
Social media is where users go to find the most recent or real-time information. Similar to consumers, most businesses use social media to reach out to customers right away. Social media can be used to quickly and easily update customers on new products, store opening and closing times, and other information.
3. Relationship building
Engagement is key in social media. People enjoy interacting with one another and learning about their surroundings. This includes the companies and brands they prefer. With a strong social media presence, you can get feedback from current customers and respond to it, talk to potential customers who are interested in your company directly, and establish business connections with influencers and brand ambassadors—all of which can eventually lead to increased customer loyalty.
4 ways a small business can use social media
Social media is beautiful because there is no one single right or wrong way to use it. Here are four strategies for integrating social media to help your small business succeed.
1. Marketing
Social media has more than 4.2 billion users worldwide, making it the single largest captive audience you can reach with your digital marketing campaigns to generate interest in the products or services of your business. Even though you won’t be able to connect with everyone, engaging with a small percentage of social media users can draw in new clients. By attracting visitors to the (digital) door and generating more business, creating engaging social media content can aid in the growth of your customer base.
Utilising social media marketing can assist you in connecting and engaging with your target audience as well as determining who to promote your products to. Think about including live video streams, forum posts asking for user reviews, and branded hashtags in your social media. By doing this, you can evaluate consumer behaviour, such as their preferences and interests, and even keep tabs on market rivalry.
2. Advertising
Utilising social media for advertising can help you reach more of your ideal clients while spending less money on marketing. Numerous options exist for free advertising, including platforms like Yelp and Craigslist. Paid promotional ad campaigns are available on the most widely used social media platforms. You can pay to promote your advertising content on websites like YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Influencers, who are social media users with large followings, are another option for collaboration. Working together with influencers to promote your offerings is a powerful way to naturally persuade customers to purchase what you’re offering and to forge favourable associations with your brand.
3. Selling
Marketing and selling products through social media is known as social selling. Numerous social media sites provide their own take on online stores where small businesses can sell their goods to customers directly. Social commerce can offer an additional revenue stream and help drive customers to your other platforms—or even a physical storefront—even though you may prefer to have control over your own website or digital storefront.
Additionally, Shopify integrates with many of the most widely used social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. This enables you to upload your product catalogue to your social profile, link your social media accounts to your online store, and sell your products across various platforms at once.
4. Growth and expansion
Social media is a powerful tool for using analytics to determine demand and find new market niches that you can fill. Small business owners can benefit greatly from the insight provided by social media monitoring tools, which are intelligence programmes that can track and analyse online conversations based on particular topics or keywords.
Take control of a small Chicago chain of jewellery stores, for instance. You want to open a new storefront, but you’re not sure where to go. You can learn from data from a social media monitoring tool that there are many online discussions going on about the dearth of a quality jewellery store in Naperville, Illinois. When you rent a space and start doing business there is a lot of demand.
How to develop a social media strategy for your business
1. Set clear goals and objectives
2. Create a content plan
3. Measure your progress
4. Pivot if necessary
A solid social media marketing strategy should outline your company’s objectives (along with metrics), target market, and the platforms you intend to use to carry out your strategy. Your social media use will be directed and effective if you create a plan and milestones you can use to track your progress along the way. Here are a few actions you can take to begin formulating your plan.
1. Set clear goals and objectives
Determine exactly what you want to achieve with your social media strategy before you do anything else. Would you like to see a certain percentage increase in sales? Do you want to compile client comments on your products? Or do you want to create a thorough marketing campaign? Maybe all of the above apply. By outlining these goals up front, you can better organise your priorities and evaluate your progress.
2. Create a content plan
A content strategy outlines the social media channels you want to use, the content you want to focus on and share, and the voice you want your brand to have on each one. You might overextend yourself by producing videos, selecting posts, and trying to stay active on every social media platform. This will have diminishing returns. Concentrate on developing a content strategy that works for you and your company, whether that means publishing several TikTok videos daily or just one Pinterest post per week.
3. Measure your progress
Ecommerce metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), which are quantifiable indicators that track the effectiveness of your social posts, can be used to track your progress. The majority of social media platforms provide insightful information and granular data that can be used to gauge different aspects of audience engagement.
Impressions. This represents how frequently users see your social media content.
Reach. the quantity of distinct accounts (people) that view your post or other content on social media.
Audience growth rate. the total number of followers that your company acquires on social media over a specific amount of time.
Return on investment (ROI). Sales) that a business can expect in relation to the expense of investing in social media.
These metrics can be used as a yardstick for the social media objectives of your business.
4. Pivot if necessary
Repeating what works and discarding what doesn’t is a key component of any social media strategy. Change your strategy if you’re not accomplishing your objectives or if your plan isn’t performing as expected. Perhaps Instagram is a better place to spend your time investing in marketing for your flower shop than Pinterest. Perhaps your Facebook advertising campaign isn’t having the impact you were hoping for, and adding a Twitter campaign to the mix to focus on a different audience would produce better results. Being adaptable can greatly aid you in achieving your initial goals.
Social media for business FAQ
How often should I post on social media for my small business?
The answer is based on your objectives, your sector, the success of your recent posts, and the amount of time you can devote to social media. Businesses frequently publish on various platforms several times per day. Always keeping an eye on the tactics of rival businesses in your industry is a good place to start.
Can social media help increase my website traffic and search engine optimization?
Yes. Large-reaching and highly engaging social media posts can increase website traffic, which most social media platforms can track directly (via page views). Although social media is not directly related to SEO, it can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) by raising brand awareness, using popular keywords in your posts, and receiving frequent traffic.
How do I measure the success of my social media efforts for my small business?
The effectiveness of your social media presence can be evaluated using a variety of metrics. These metrics range from the simple likes, retweets, and shares to the more intricate reach, traffic generated, click-through rate (CTR), or cost per click (CPC), among others.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when using social media for small businesses?
Oversharing can decrease viewer engagement and possibly harm your brand because it can result in content fatigue and oversaturation. Using the incorrect platform for your industry or type of business is another common mistake. A small shoe store, for instance, wouldn’t want to concentrate its social media efforts primarily on LinkedIn. That’s because users looking to buy new shoes would probably scroll on a platform that is more focused on commerce, like Instagram.
