Top 8 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Be On Social Media
June 30th is Social Media Day – so what better month to talk about why your small business should be on social media? In 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, and that number is expected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025, according to Statista. It goes without saying, but social media is the most popular method for communicating, connecting and engaging. If you’re not on social media as a business, you should be here. Here are the top 8 reasons why.
1. Generate Brand Awareness
Social media allows you to spread information about your business quickly and cost-efficiently with the potential to reach millions of people with your messaging. People want to buy from brands they know and trust. So, the more brand awareness you can generate, the better off you’ll be as a small business. A simple post can help you get in front of your customers easier than you can with traditional marketing efforts like radio, TV, and magazine ads.
2. More Website Traffic
On social media, you can direct people to your website. For example, you can include a link to your website in a post you make or include a link in your biography. This link can be any part of your website that you want people to visit. Whether a product page, homepage, contact us page, or another part of your site, social media is a great way to drive more traffic to your website. There are many other ways you can use social media to drive traffic, including:
- Add a link to your website in your social media biography
- Add a link to social media posts
- Utilize social media advertising
- Create a blog and link to it in social posts
- Host a giveaway or special that links back to your website
3. Provide Strong Customer Service
Talking to customers in person or over the phone aren’t the only ways to provide strong customer service. Social media is a great way to handle customer complaints, questions, comments or concerns in a timely manner. Social media allows you to respond and resolve these issues quickly and efficiently. According to Social Media Today, about 67% of customers use platforms like Twitter and Facebook to seek resolution from brands when they’ve had a poor experience.
4. It’s Cost-Efficient and Effective
If you’re a small business that has spent hundreds or even thousands on traditional marketing efforts like TV commercials and radio, consider a more cost-efficient yet effective strategy like social media. With social media, your small business can reach extremely large amounts of people for a very low price. Unless you spend money on advertising and boosting posts, you really don’t pay much of anything to be on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. While ads can be very effective, you want to make sure the ad is well crafted and well thought out. Even if you choose to publish an ad, social media allows you to choose a budget so you still don’t have to spend an absurd amount of money to reach your target audience.
5. Helps Improve Customer Retention
Not only can social media help you gain new customers, but it can also help you retain the ones you already have. If your customers have purchased your products or services (and like them), social media makes it easy for customers to stay engaged with your brand. The more posts you make as a business, the more you’re keeping your brand top-of-mind for those that follow you – and enjoy your content, products, and services. This is why it’s so important to post content that is engaging, informative, creative, and unique. This will help keep your followers and fans engaged.
6. Generates New Leads
6. Generates New LeadsWe talked about improving customer retention, but what about new leads? Social media helps with that too. Not only can social media help you gain new customers, but it can help you do so in a low-cost way. You can run certain ad campaigns, asking people to follow you or giving 10% off for new customers and clients. You can run a giveaway that encourages people to use your products or services. If you have a customer that is already happy with your services, you may generate new leads from word-of-mouth. There are many ways to generate new leads through social media – and low-cost ways, at that. Organic posts are free – and even if you decide to boost a post or run an ad, you can still do so cost-effectively.
7. Boosts Search Engine Optimization
Did you know that social media and SEO (search engine optimization) can work hand-in-hand? Social media can help your SEO in a variety of different ways, including:
- Increased backlinks through social media channels can drive traffic
- Social boosts can index your pages quicker
- Engagement equals increased time on pages which equals a higher ranking
To learn more about how social media can help your search engine optimization efforts, click here.
8. Establishes Your Brand As A Thought Leader
Thought leadership when it comes to your brand is so important. Being active on social media and being a brand that people want to follow helps build trust. More and more people are looking to brands like yours for information on topics – and what better place to share that information than on social media? There are many ways you can build thought leadership using your social media, including:
- Understanding who your target audience is
- Creating a professional social media profile (spend time on your about us, biography, and content)
- Post quality, engaging content frequently
- Participate in online discussions as your brand
- Answer questions related to your product or service
- Network with other industry leads
Social media allows you, as a small business, to establish authority in your industry, enhance credibility, and build trust. You can deliver value and high-quality content to your followers while also growing your brand and your business at the same time.