The short answer is: yes. If you’re already sold, check out our post on 21 questions you can ask to increase your social media engagement. If not, keep reading on to find out why!
The eruption of social media has allowed businesses build meaningful relationships with their customers, placing an emphasis on inbound marketing. With 62% of the world online, sharing your content is even more crucial than before in earning your website valuable inbound links.
We look at the rewards that businesses can gain from utilising social media platforms.
Utilising Small Business Social Media Platforms Effectively
If you don’t have quality content, no one will link to your website. The only links you will have are those you build yourself. But some links that you handle on your own can be quite valuable. Links from social media platforms are increasingly becoming more important in terms of your SEO.
But it’s not enough to simply have social profiles for your business. You need to be active on them and share valuable content that will allow other people to link back to your website. People love to share content that they find interesting or valuable. That’s what quality content is so important.
In an ideal world, Google wants someone to naturally find your website and then link to content that you’ve published. But for this to be effective you need to have the right content that people want to share. You should publish unique and engaging content that outflanks your competitors.
After you’ve published your content, you should promote it and let other people know about it. You can do this through various channels, including e-mail marketing, blogs, and of course social media. Once you get some social media links and mentions, you will start to have their regular flow of people visiting your website or your social profiles. If you continue to publish great content, they will continue to share it.
In a recent survey, 92% of respondents agree that social media marketing is important for their business.
It’s also interesting to note that among social media marketing for small businesses, Facebook still dominates. It is followed by twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Other social media platforms with mainstream include Pinterest, Instagram and SlideShare.
B2B small businesses also use social media differently from B2C businesses. While B2C businesses focus on Facebook, B2B businesses rely more on LinkedIn for their social marketing.
Although only 18% of B2B respondents are using LinkedIn ads, 71% of them wants to learn more about LinkedIn. This shows that interests can differ among businesses.
Utilising Social Media
If you are one of those small businesses who are not yet using social media to its fullest, you need to start doing so. Your competitors are likely already using social media to their advantage, and so all your customers. This means that there is a powerful social platform just waiting to benefit your business.
Around 62% of people worldwide use a form of social media.
This means millions of people are using an online platform that you can have access to. It’s a great way to get your brand in front of prospects and get your customers engaged. You can even use social media as a way of handling your customer support – many big names already do this.
In a report published by Nielson in 2011, people in the US spend about 25% of their time online on social media. This means that your customers are already using social media, and you should too.
With small businesses spending an average of six hours per day on social media, it is a good indication of its effectiveness. Of course, you need to use this platform correctly to improve your ROI. Some businesses choose to hire a team of social media marketers to handle the marketing efforts while others prefer to handle their own social media strategies – at least at first until they expand their business.
If you want to reach your clients, you need to know where they are.
By using social media platforms you will significantly increase the chances of putting your brand in front of your customers. You can start building your friends and followers, and engaging your audience.
Using social media will give your business a competitive advantage. It’s very likely that your competitors are already using social media to market their business and their products. If that’s the case, you want to join social media so that you can level the playing field. You don’t want to fall behind, and if some of your competitors are not yet using social media, you will get a head start.
Social media helps you to connect with customers and prospects.
Another advantage of social media is that it offers you a two-way marketing channel. Most marketing efforts involve you sending out a marketing message to your customers. Whether they receive it or not, this is usually way the marketing ends. But the social media, your client can engage with you and you can start a conversation with them.
Social media is not only reserved for the big businesses out there. Small businesses can significantly benefit from social media platforms as it allows them to connect directly with customers and allow for valuable backlinks to their website. Whether you hire a team to handle your social media, or choose to do it in-house – it is undoubtedly one of the most important marketing platforms to use.
Whether you are just starting out on social media or are an expert in the field, you need good content to keep people engaged. The Content Works provides optimised content for all your social media needs.