Social media is much more than just a place where millennials can share snaps of their avocado on toast. It’s actually an extremely powerful digital marketing tool that your business needs to be taking advantage of. This applies to small, medium and large business, as well as both emerging and established brands so it’s high time you started taking social media more seriously. Now might even be the perfect time to enlist the help of an industry expert such as https://www.click.co.uk/.
Social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram need to become an integral part of your marketing plan or else you risk becoming lost in a saturated marketplace. As a small or growing enterprise, you need to get your voice heard and social media is an extremely effective vehicle through which to do this. You’ll notice that even some of the biggest brand names in the world rely on a heavy social media presence to connect with their customers and with good reason to.
Here are just a few more examples of why small businesses need social media in order to survive and thrive:
Reach a much wider audience
Without social media, businesses are limited to phone calls, emails and video conference calls as their main forms of communication with both clients and customers. While these are perfectly effective, they have nothing on the reach social media allows you access to. Having a strong presence on social media means you are able to tap into an international audience that you might never have made contact with without.
Close the deal on more sales
According to recent research, social media marketing has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than a basic outbound approach. Not giving your brand’s social media presence the attention it deserves means you’re running the risk on missing out on a whole new spectrum of very lucrative leads and sales.
Social improves SEO
While social media and search engine optimisation (SEO) are two separate entities when it comes to digital marketing, they can be very closely linked. When spiders crawl the web, they will seek out the sites which are consistently generating good quality traffic and reward them with a higher position up the search ranks than those who aren’t experiencing many clicks or visitors. Promoting and sharing your content across a variety of social media channels will significantly boost traffic to your optimised pages and subsequently, your position in the SERPs.
It encourages word of mouth marketing
Platforms including (but most certainly not limited to) Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are social by name and social by nature. They’re all about conversation, sharing and spreading the word – this includes your brand message, your services and any products you’re looking to sell. If you post good quality, shareable content to social media, you’ll find people will start reposting and sharing with their own audiences. This is great news for your brand exposure and even better news for your budget as it is a form of free advertising.
So now you can see the importance of having a strong social media strategy for small businesses, it’s time to put a plan into action. If you have any of your own advice, share it on Twitter or Facebook and help us spread the word.
