While scrolling through your news feed on Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media platform, you see a lot of ads. You might notice a promotional campaign or a product review post going viral every now and then. Social media ads are tailored and specifically targeted at you by marketers who consider you as potential customers.
Nowadays if you observe, social media marketing is not utilized by big companies only. Be it a startup or an established business, social media marketing has become a fundamental aspect of business planning and strategy.
Moreover, businesses have realized that they need to have a social media presence. Without a presence on social media platforms, they are bound to miss out on a considerable portion of their potential clients.
Why is it so? It is because the rate with which users of social media is increasing is staggering. Irrespective of the age group, the usage of social media platforms is beating other ways marketers reach out to their potential customers.
Importance of social media marketing
What do marketers need the most out of their marketing? Reaching out to a large number of potential customers. Yes, this might not be the only thing that marketers require, but the importance of it can be gauged by how much conventional marketing techniques used to focus on it.
Physically, it is impossible to reach millions of potential customers with one type of marketing campaign. Only a small number of targeted audience can view the billboard, while the other few can get the fliers. With the advent of social media marketing, you don’t have to worry about physically reaching out to each and every probable consumer.
Why small businesses need it?
Small businesses usually do not have a lot of budgets to spare for marketing. Thus, social media has solved one of the biggest hurdles of marketing for small businesses, that is, reaching out to a large target audience. Promotional posts going viral, an influence endorsing your product, or a blogger mentioning your product on their blog and urging his or her followers to avail your business products or services – are all ways through which digital marketing has acquired premium importance.
Small businesses need social media marketing as much as the big businesses which are already making big bucks. Social media is open for all – whether you have a small business or an established one, social media is there with tons of opportunities to boost your business.
Following are some of the benefits social media marketing offers to your business:
Helps you in reaching out to your potential customers
For small businesses, it is crucial that they know who their customers are and what do they want. Social media is a great place to accomplish that. You can note down their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, their interests, and the social causes they support.
This information helps in unimaginable ways to tailor your ads according to your potential customers’ needs and desires. And once you know all about your target audience, you know where to find them. You can target a social event of their interest or a hobbies page that they have joined.
You can extract so much information about your consumers from social media that your business can easily build up its marketing strategies around it.
Acts as your personalized news channel
Launched a new product line? Update on social media. Reduced your prices or offering a discount? Post it on social media. Collaborated with a celebrity or an influencer? Make it viral on your social media page. Been reviewed by a known personality? Share it on social media.
Social media is the biggest news channel in this era, specifically designed for you. Use it to promote your mobile app, your product, your celebrated testimonials, or positive feedbacks.
Builds Relationship with the audience
How many of you have heard about Nike’s Just Do It campaign? Most of us must have. Nike has utilized its social media to build relationships with its audience. And it has driven their sales and customer engagement to a new level.
When small businesses post about their journey, campaigns, sales, and products on social media, the target audience gets hooked on to the stories. Social media is a great platform to connect with the audience.
If your brand is consistent in social media marketing and your potential consumers can find it everywhere, you tend to gain their trust. When customers post about your business, give positive product reviews, or interact with your page, it sends out reliance signals.
Consider the example of Leather skin shop in this case. It receives numerous customer reviews and testimonials that it shares with pride. Businesses like these convince customers that your brand is authentic, and you have built a fair amount of loyal customers.
Drives more sales
Your availability and visibility round the clock make you glued in the minds of your customers. Your social media presence keeps you alive in their thoughts. Thus, whenever the need arises, your name pops up in their minds, and so social media is a power booster to increase your sales.
For example, if you are craving for a pizza and you tend to find Domino’s pizza ads everywhere targeted at you on social media, you’d surely go for it. Domino’s pizza is known to have astounding digital marketing.
Effectively increases inbound traffic
If you don’t use social media as your marketing tool, you are never going to discover more business opportunities. Social media a key marketing channel for small businesses to gain visibility, drive traffic to your website, and generate new leads. So you should look into:
- Identifying social networking sites that will work best for your business
- Creating social media posts to ensure your brand name can be found
Once you understand which social networking sites are the perfect choice for your business, you can take benefit from them to generate leads. Businesses that analyze these aspects and get into a few relevant platforms can reap the benefits of social media to a very high extent.
Decreases your marketing costs
This goes without saying: social media marketing is way cheaper than the conventional ways of offline marketing. It requires less traveling and can be carried out remotely. You can hire social media marketers from across the globe to add value to your business. You can appoint the services of any social media influencer that suits you without having to worry about the logistics.
Even if you are a local freelancer having a group of quality writers who aim to build a blogging company, social media is a great tool to bring together all your marketing strategies and make a pitch. It is not necessary to be a part of a hotshot big company for using social media as a marketing tool.
Final words
Social media is an open platform for all. If you use it for expanding your marketing and sales with the right strategies, you are sure to hit the jackpot.
Happy marketing!
Article written by Ashley Rosa.
