It’s no secret that social media can be a powerful marketing resource for small business owners. Unless you’re running ads, marketing on social media platforms is free, except for your time. Surprisingly, most small businesses don’t know how they can fully leverage their social media presence to get the most out of it. Is your small business getting the most out of social media efforts? Here are some good ways to take full advantage of social your social platforms.
Lead generation
Lead generation is the most common reason that most businesses large and small use social media. As a matter of fact, 61% of businesses on social media say they are using social for lead generation. Adding paid ads can do even more to generate leads, as most social platforms provide powerful targeting tools to get your ad in front of the right audience. Even without paid ads, however, strategically using the right keyword phrases and hashtags will get your company in front of those who are more likely to engage with you.
Customer engagement
One of the most powerful ways to enhance customer engagement on your social channels is by providing timely customer service. Unfortunately, many small businesses have social messaging that’s one way only; they push out messages, but don’t interact with their potential and existing customers. Leveraging the platforms as an arm of your customer services provides timely engagement; invaluable in these times where people are looking for instantaneous communication. Consider using the messaging features of social platforms to increase customer engagement and provide real-time customer service. Actively solicit reviews, testimonials, and feedback from clients about your products or service. The key is to have a conversation with your audience; a 2-way conversation!
Sales
When done correctly, social media can drive sales for your small business. As long as you’re on the social channels that your target audience is on, best determined by completing a small business marketing strategy, you can create engaging content that educates your prospects on the features and benefits of your product or service without being too salesy. Once a prospect is familiar with your company and how it can help them, the sales process can become much easier. Crazy Egg wrote a great article about using social media for sales efforts.
Branding
Social media is one of the most powerful tools to create brand awareness, engagement, and traffic which ultimately brings conversions for the business. In social media with every tweet, retweet, like, share, and comment you increase your brand outreach and make it stronger than your competitors. As a matter of fact, 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a brand and 77% will choose a brand over a competitor after a positive experience with a brand on social media.
Business intelligence
By gathering data from social media channels and analyzing it with the business intelligence you already have, your small business can get an understanding of potential customers, such as whether or not they have bought their products and services and what they’re looking for. This provides deeper insights, such as volume of sales for a particular product in a key market; valuable insights if you’re looking to expand your product line or enter a new market. Use of social media for business intelligence continues to grow: 85% of executives report that social data will be a primary source of business intelligence for their company moving forward.
Social listening
Industry conditions change quickly, and your small business can’t afford to be left behind on new trends. Keeping a virtual ear to the ground through social listening makes sure you’re always informed about upcoming changes to your industry that could affect the way you do business. It also allows you to know what your customers are looking for and how you might be able to solve their problems through your service or product.
Looking for more ways to get the most out of your social media presence? Check out Hootsuite’s article containing 23 ways to use social media for your business.
While your small business may not use social media in all the ways listed above, knowing how you can get the most out of your social platforms can help you get the most out of your social media marketing efforts and help your small business grow.
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