Marketing is constantly changing, and social media marketing is no exception.
Social media has become so important in our digital world that it's not just for big brands anymore. It's for small business owners, too!
92% of small business owners who use social media consider it essential for their business. Why?
This article will break down five benefits of social media for small businesses.
The Five Tips
Brand Awareness
Increased Website Traffic
Lead Generation & Sales
Customer Loyalty
Customer Insights & Analytics
Advantages of Social media Marketing
Every person and their dog has social media accounts these days.
Data suggests that social media will only grow more and more users in the future.
Top data company Statista has tracked the number of social media users worldwide, and according to their research, almost 4.41 billion people will be using social media by 2025.
To put that into context, in 2020, 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide. So that means in 5 years, the number of users will over double.
Now, does that shout opportunity for small businesses or what?
So, let's break down the benefits of social media marketing for small businesses now we know the number of people using it.
Brand Awareness
I think this would be the most apparent benefit to social media marketing.
As mentioned, the sheer number of people using social media worldwide opens the door to businesses improving the visibility of their brand.
To think, if you could get just 0.001% of the current number of social media users to purchase from your business, that would equate to 36,000 orders. Madness!
Nowadays, you can be a little pickier about who you are targeting to gain awareness for your brand.
With so many users, you can choose who you want to target and how you want to communicate with them.
For example, if you're a skateboard store, this is what you targeting could look like:
Activities: Skating, outdoor activities
Demographic: Aged 18-35 years old
Competitor brands: Nike SB, Vans, Thrasher etc
The above is just an example, and you will need to research yourself and build detailed personas.
Facebook Advertising is a great way to boost awareness even further for your brand and hone in on your target audience.
Facebook Ads also displays your promotions on Instagram.
Alternatively, you can boost your Instagram posts.
Other platforms such as TikTok, Pinterest and Twitter have paid media capabilities.
You will have to spend money with paid media, so make sure you have a budget. It doesn't have to be a lot. I've seen excellent results and leads generated from just £1 per day.
You can also go down the organic route to boost brand awareness. To do this, you need to do the following things:
Optimise your content for your audience
Include a call-to-action in the caption
Use researched hashtags
Be patient
Be consistent
The last two is me offering you advice. Going down the organic route on social media takes time and patience.
Also, to have the best chance of growing brand awareness for your small business on social media, you need to post consistently and regularly.
But, if you decide to combine both paid media and organic strategies, you could reach potential customers from across the globe to promote and draw attention to your brand.
Increased Website Traffic
Social media can drive traffic to your website.
With the right strategy in place and a regular posting schedule, you could see hundreds, if not thousands, of people heading to your website every day.
These people could be heading straight to your content, products or services page.
Now we all know more visibility equals more sales. That's the end goal.
How to drive social media traffic
To maximise the amount of traffic heading to your site from social media, do the following
Promote your blog posts
Promote your products
Use video
Create eye-catching graphics
Use high-quality imagery
Post media of people
Promote testimonials and reviews
Make your content shareable
Post at optimise times
Engage/talk with your followers
Direct message followers
Use hashtags
Optimise your calls-to-actions
Update your bio or profile
Put money behind your posts
Lead Generation & Sales
Social media can not only drive traffic to your website; it can also directly generate leads and sales.
Most of the time, consumers head over to a business's social media page to make sure they are legitimate and help them with the purchasing decisions.
Here are five things you can do to maximise leads and sales from social media
Connect your store to your social media platform
Include a lead capture form in your bio or post
Offer a lead magnet in exchange for an email address
Include a link in your stories
Include ratings/customer reviews in your captions
Customer Loyalty
Gain trust from your past or current customers and take them on a journey from first awareness to becoming a loyal advocate of your brand.
Customer loyalty is essential for growing small businesses.
Customer loyalty refers to customers that believe in your brand, refer your brand to friends and families and regularly purchase from you.
The aim is to get all customers to become loyal advocates.
Loyal advocates act as sales reps for your brand, promoting and growing the number of customers.
Here are 3 tips to increase customer loyalty using social media
Plan your social media content themes around community or customers
Post customers in or using your products or services
Post in-depth guides or tutorials on your products or services
Suggested Reading
Customer Insights & Analytics
Social media accounts have incredible analytical tools available right on your app.
The data uses information about your current audience and followers.
This gives you key insights into the content your customers are interested in.
Use this data to plan out future content.
For example, if a post on product features gets more likes, comments, and website clicks than a post of your product on a model. Post more feature posts!
Once you have data available, categorise it by your objective.
Your objectives might be
Website clicks
Likes
Shares
Comments
Impressions
Wrapping Up
There you have it! Five benefits to social media for small businesses.
I have also included quick-fire tips on how you can maximise each of these benefits.
Now it's time for you to start benefiting from social media.
Go and connect with consumers, create content and drive engagement.
But before you go, don't forget to sign up for my email list.
You'll find growth-driven marketing tips and insights only available to my subscribers.
Thanks for reading :)
Jack
