Few years back, most businesses were normally local ‘brick and mortars’ which used door to door type of marketing to engage people. But, off late due to the evolution of varied Technologies, radio & TV, motion pictures introduced new opportunities for business marketing, eventually getting higher for telemarketing, direct mail, trade shows, print advertising, and email blasts. Undoubtedly, these practices were proven to be successful for years, but most of today’s customers see them as disturbing and have consequently become a bit savvy at ignoring outdated marketing attempts.
Enter the world of social media – a Web-based inbound method of marketing that assists small businesses to get easily found online. “Social media” signifies to different websites where people from across the world connect, interact and share online.
Technology providers are hustling for a larger piece of the local pie that will keep growing their game by providing better and more wide-ranging services to assist small businesses grow. And this is surely a good news for all the entrepreneurs who are laser- dedicated on growth.
Though this is good, as it signifies that you don’t have to change networks often, but at the same time its bad as larger businesses already have a foothold on the world’s leading networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest, and that’s why small businesses have to constantly look for new ways to compete.
Look at these statistics:
- More than 1 billion people are actively using Facebook every month
- 500,000 people are using Twitter every month
- Every hour 5+ million photos are uploaded to Instagram
- Google’s +1 button is used 2+ billion times daily
- Every hour 3,600 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube
These statistics are enough to tell how Social Media can help businesses increase their reach to every nook and cranny of the world.
1: Small Businesses Can Benefit From Social Media
Most businesses agree that social media marketing is crucial for their business. Today most successful businesses are using social media and believe that it’s very vital for their company or business.
2: Facebook Plays a Vital Role in Small Business’s Social Media Marketing
Today, many businesses are organizing their marketing campaign on world’s leading social networking site “Facebook”. A survey was carried out which showed that around 93 percent use Facebook for social media marketing, which is ahead of Twitter at 79 percent. It is predicted that in near future, 62 percent businesses will plan to increase their Facebook usage for advertising objectives. And, 66 percent will improve their YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn activity.
YouTube is mostly used by bigger businesses. Precisely, 71 percent of businesses having more than 100 employees definitely use YouTube, as compared to 38 percent of entrepreneurs
3: B2B and B2C Small Businesses Have Different Ways of Using Social Media
For most businesses and entrepreneurs, LinkedIn is the first choice for usage as a social networking platform. Usually, B2B type of businesses focus primarily on LinkedIn, but at respectable rates uses Facebook and Twitter as well.
Whereas, B2C companies, primarily focus on Facebook. It does make sense for B2B businesses, as they’re more focused in the quest for the buyers, facilities managers, marketing people and other who are on LinkedIn for industry news and connections. Whereas, Facebook is such a social networking platform where people from every nook and cranny of the world are its part.
According to a research, B2B marketers are using Facebook advertisements at the rate of 75 percent, whereas only 18 percent of them are using LinkedIn ads. For B2C businesses, Facebook is like a huge potential customer pool.
4: Many Small Business Marketers are Unaware about the Facebook’s Effectiveness
Despite the fact that more than 90% of small businesses use and believe that social media is vital for their business, still they are unaware of whether their Facebook outreach is effectively working or not.
Working here means creating rapports with clients, positive brand awareness, bringing more sales and leads. Most small businesses don’t know whether Facebook is helping them to achieve their goals successfully or not. It could be because they haven’t set goals yet or they aren’t concerned about measuring their progress towards achieving their goals.
Being an innovative marketing platform with lots of buzzes, Facebook hype can be clouding its actual potential, especially for small businesses.
It’s important for small businesses to understand that marketing efforts do need some time to bring in positive results, so it’s vital to give social media efforts a big opportunity.
5: Small Businesses are trying to Improve Their Facebook Activities
Although, many people are unaware about the effectiveness of the Facebook, 62 percent of them are planning to step up their activities on it. Knowing properly about using Facebook for marketing can be helpful for them to grow their engagement, customer base and more.
6: #1Benefit of Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses: “Increased Exposure”
Measuring “Increased exposure” is quite more difficult than measuring bounce or traffic rate. Small business owners and marketers believe it as the best benefit of social media marketing. Social media help businesses to reach the wider crowd of audiences.
7: #2Benefit of Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses: “Increased Traffic to Website”
A research showed that marketers and small business owners are benefited with good amount of traffic coming to their website through social referrals. And getting this data is very easy through Google Analytics. Using social media marketing for a longer period can help small businesses to see increased traffic driving to their site.
Similar to the other marketing methods, social media also need time for giving back positive results.
8: Social Media Helps Small Businesses by Cutting down Marketing Expenses
Earlier, Facebook allowed companies to reach targeted audiences at very nominal price. Further before 2014, FB allowed businesses and companies to reach out their audiences for absolutely free. This move of Facebook enticed more marketers toward the channel. The Facebook’s prospects of an absolutely free marketing channel with lots of potential reaching of one billion people simply proved irresistible for the smart business owners and marketers.
But, afterward Facebook began charging for advertising activities there. The majority of the businesses marketing in social media has realized and strongly agreed that they have reduced their overall marketing expenses to a greater extent through social media.
9: Small Businesses Are Being Driven By Social Media Nowadays And Their Sales Is Also Raised Exponentially Over Time.
Increasing sales and leads is the key goal of every marketing strategy. Social Media is more challenging than SEO and PPC ads while working for direct sales. Continuous use of social media can help small businesses to increase their sales.
A research was carried out for examining the usage of social media by 500 leading merchants. And it was found that social commerce sales of those companies increased by 25 %. It is predicted that worldwide social sales will surpass $30 billion by the end of 2015. So, it’s a good opportunity for small businesses and marketers to turn to social media for a promising social selling.
10: Facebook is the Crowned King of Social Media Paid Advertisements
Another benefit of marketing in social media is the flexibility to target advertisements to a narrow geographic and demographic market offers the other. Marketers are using Facebook ads more than the Google ads. Other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and others as well have good ad opportunities in business growth. Nowadays, more marketers are planning to update their marketing activities to position their business to a safe level.
11: Varieties of Social Media Content
As soon as you realize which social media platform is more suitable for driving the most valuable traffic, the next crucial step is to give away useful and relevant content to engage target traffic.
Successful blogging not just offers relevant content driving social outreach, it is SEO (search engine optimization) qualities that bring in more leads and help in boosting search engine ranking.
Related Posts:
5 MYTHS OF B2B BUSINESS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.
WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA METHOD WILL BEST SUITS YOUR BUSINESS?
7 PREFERRED SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MANEUVERS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS.
4 STRATEGIES THAT CAN CAUSE AN INSTANT BOOST IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ROI.
Final Words:
Looking at vast promising success through social media, small businesses should invest their hard-earned marketing dollar wisely & smartly.
If you are a small or startup business, the most crucial thing that you should remember is that social media is not a sprint, rather it’s a marathon! You should revamp your social marketing efforts. Know your audience, and pick the best platform for reaching them. Do thorough research, mix up your social media links and icons, often share content and keep yourself updated about how things are going. Understand latest social media marketing trends, follow them and you will most certainly be positioned for success!!!
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