Why should small businesses be visible on social media?

In recent years, social media has changed how we do business and how we talk to our customers. Social media has affected our daily living in so many ways with many benefits to business owners. Small businesses can target specific audiences through social media offering a higher ROI than traditional marketing channels.

Small businesses have been able to achieve financial success through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, but it’s not just about posting regularly, it’s about engaging, it’s about adding an advertising budget, it’s about creating a sales funnel for the store or service.

Social Media has become a need for everyone!

About 4.2 billion people are estimated to be connected on social media channels today. Compared to other ad channels such as television, social media is cheaper and is known to be a more effective means of reaching the right customer at the right time. This means that social media has gone from being a “nice to have” to a “necessity or a must” especially for small businesses. All businesses should use social media to reach more targeted customers and engage customers locally.

Staying Connected

Today, business owners can stay connected to their industry peers through LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup and Twitter. We don’t just connect by exchanging business cards, we connect through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Business owners who attend events usually post using the event associated hashtag along with a picture or video of course. Some even “Go Live” on Facebook or Instagram. Event attendees can search these hashtags later and find out what they missed. If you are a small business owner who takes a booth at these events it’s equally important to use the event hashtag to stay connected to your audience after the event.

Another way businesses are using LinkedIn is to stay connected to the industry by or creating relationships locally from far away. Attending events frequently and using LinkedIn Find nearby is a great way to see who else is in the room. This helps everyone stay connected with local industry leaders or simply looking for new opportunities and partners.

Creating More Website Traffic

According to Tech blogger, Mark Cuban, more people are finding his blog more through Facebook and Twitter than through Google. We know that social media is a great way to bring traffic to a website. One of the best ways to drive traffic is to advertise your products, services or blogs on Facebook and even LinkedIn. Forget about the spray and pray approach to advertising but instead, take a targeted approach focusing on those who are interested in the product or service. If done correctly it can be the largest source of organic traffic to your website.

Easy to set up Start-Up

With the help of social media sites, it has become easier to start and launch a business. New York Times mentioned that Twitter has become the major means of marketing for a lot of mom-and-pop shops with a limited advertising budget. Creating social media pages are quick and free to set up. More often small businesses rely solely on their Facebook Page to generate business. It’s one of the easiest ways to start an online presence without adding any large marketing costs. Even with a small advertising budget of $10 per day, a post can potentially reach 1000s in the area (if audiences are targeted correctly). While it can be totally free to set up and create organic followers it does cost time. Often small business owners don’t have this time to spare. At Howler Hub we recommend starting with a very small budget to generate interest.

Door To New Opportunities

Social media has indeed become valuable to small business but it’s important to understand that once relationships are created it’s even more important to keep customers engaged. Social media can often become the first place clients reach out, ask questions or make comments about your product or service. In these cases it should be the first part of a sales funnel. There are many ways to create a sales funnel through social media. One way is the use of remarketing ads. Remarketing is a way for customers to be “reminded” about your product or service but it can often be costly. Another is to add new customers (generated through social media) to a subscriber list. Many larger businesses have many sales funnels that start with social media. Isn’t it time your small business has one too!

Need help developing a social media plan for your business, contact us.

Why should small businesses be visible on social media?

Social Media has become a need for everyone!

Staying Connected

Creating More Website Traffic

Easy to set up Start-Up

Door To New Opportunities

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