04/11/2016
7 REASONS WHY YOUR SMALL BUSINESS SHOULD BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
1. YOUR COLLEAGUES, PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS ARE THERE RIGHT NOW.
Your colleagues are relating with customers and expanding their businesses.
Your customers
Are you there when they need help? Are you there advising them on their next sale?
2.YOUR COMPETITION MAY NOT BE THERE!
What if for some reason your competition is not on social media or they are probably not as active or as engaging? That you don’t have much of your industry on social is not an excuse but an opportunity.
3. IT HELPS YOU GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS therefore improving your business and then increasing sales. No longer do you have to guess or assume what your customers really want. You can use social media to get to know your target customers intimately by hanging out with them online. You can listen, learn and build real relationships using social media. You can also leverage blog content to position yourself as a resource by sharing helpful information that solves a problem for your target customer.
4. GAIN VALUABLE CUSTOMER INSIGHT
You listen to what your customer need and get instant feedback on offers, marketing messages and pricing. And on Twitter, you can even listen to the competition and check out their content and they don’t even know you are eavesdropping.
5. INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS AND LOYALTY
When you have a presence on social media, you make it easier for your customers to find and connect with you. And by connecting with your customers on social, you’re more likely to increase customer retention and brand loyalty. A study by The Social Habit shows that 53 percent of Americans who follow brands on social are more loyal to those brands.
6. EXPAND YOUR AUDIENCE/CLIENT BASE
It’s not just about selling to the 30-mile radius around your retail storefront. Social media gives you access to customers across town or worldwide. You need to build an ecommerce presence no matter what kind of business you have, and social media is the best way to build a following of people who can’t just come to your store.
7. INCREASE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE: Social media is the most inexpensive way to drive traffic to your website, which after all is the whole point of using social media marketing. And the more you share, the higher the search rankings will be for your website.
This should be more than enough information to convince you that it’s time to invest in social media. After all the accounts are free, but you pay with your time, so be strategic. If I can give you just one more piece of advice, don’t focus on more than two social media platform at a time (especially if you are new to social media). Once you are dominating then move on the next one. Be sure to focus on the social media site where you are target customer spends the majority of their time online.
That will give you the best return on your investment.
Culled from: markettechblog.com, succeedyourownboss.com, blog.hootsuite.com