Social Media for Small Business
No matter what you sell and who you sell to, using social media is a valuable marketing tool that can help grow your brand. Social media for small business has developed a reputation for being an unprofitable marketing tool, or at least a hard to determine ROI. The statistics, however, illustrate a different picture. According to a recent study by Hubspot, 92% of marketers claimed that social media marketing was important for their business. Also, 80% of businesses indicated that their efforts increased traffic to their websites. Here’s a look at just some of the ways social media marketing can improve your business.
Increase Your Brand Recognition
Unless you just happen to be the only company around that does what you do, brand recognition is important to your business. Think of social media networks as ways to amplify your voice and brand. Social media simultaneously makes your business more accessible for new customers and makes your customers more accessible to you. For example, a frequent Facebook user might become better acquainted with your services after seeing your content and other friends liking your page. Just don’t get overwhelmed by what social media network to be on because you don’t have to do them all.
Improve Brand Loyalty
Social media helps customers bond with your brand. Both Google and the Texas Tech University published reports finding that brands with active social media profiles have more loyal customers. Social media helps to humanize a business. It is also a great way to show your brand’s personality and vision. Social media is a marketing channel that truly allows you to engage and interact with your customers.
Higher Conversion Rates
As we already spoke about brand recognition and brand loyalty, these help drive higher conversion rates. It’s called humanizing your brand, and it comes with real results. These different channels, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. allow for you to extend your customer service and help your customers online. This personalization increases engagement with your brand and subsequently increases conversion rates.
Better Search Engine Rankings
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the best way to capture relevant traffic from search engines. However, the requirements for high SEO success are always changing. Updating content, writing a regular blog, using correct tags, and meta descriptions plus distributing links point back to your site, may not the end all be all. This is where social media comes in. Google and other search engines may be calculating your rankings using your social media presence as a significant factor. The fact is, strong brands always use social media. Being active on social media signals to search engines that your brand is credible and trustworthy. Therefore, if you want to rank for a particular set of keywords, having a strong social media presence is almost mandatory.
Still apprehensive?
Don’t be. Consider a few last things. First, your competitors are on already on social media. And if my some grace they aren’t, you could be ahead of the game. Why let your competitors poach your potential social media traffic and conversions while you idly stand by? Secondly, social media for small business is all about relationship building. So, as you grow your followers, they tell their friends about your company. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be able to start growing your business.
Realistically, you are not losing anything by getting involved in social media. The amount of time and money it takes to create your social media profiles and start posting is usually minimal. Here at Color Fire, we know that social media for small business is important to an integrated marketing plan. If you are interested in getting started with improving your brand identity, contact us today. Check out our social media marketing page for more information. It has the 411 on how we can enhance your brand recognition.
