For small businesses, social media has turned the tables for they could not afford the cost of mass promotion or even generic promotion. Free social media platforms have provided small businesses with opportunity to compete with the big players in terms of quality, value proposition and other factors. To give you a closer look at how social media helps in marketing, we have discussed some of the important factors you must know about:
Leverage the Present
Grabbing an opportunity sometimes means everything in a business, irrespective of its size. And talking about opportunities, social media is the best way of using current and upcoming opportunities in the best interests of a business. A business, with the help of a social media page, can connect better with the customers by involving in social activities, events etc., and create content related to it. For example - during a flood emergency in Chennai - India, the country's biggest cab aggregator 'Ola' sent out Ola boats to rescue people in distress. Ola covered the activity on Facebook, benefitting a great deal from it. Other than that, businesses can also post about how they contributed towards some common mission/goal/objective established by a group of companies, and how they played an important role in that. In a nutshell, it is all about keeping up with what is around.
Attract Website Traffic
Although Google introduced its page and website ranking protocols years back, the technicalities involved in being found by Google as 'suitable for users' is still a tough job to understand. And even for those who understand, keeping up SEO algorithms defined by Google demands way too much effort. With social media, the burden on SEO to drive traffic towards the website can be reduced, because one can simply create a post with the website content linked to it. The good thing is that the way you gain visibility on Google Search and Facebook are way different. So if your page has a huge number of followers, your website content is bound to receive a good amount of traffic through the post.
Customer Loyalty
According to a survey, more than 65% revenue comes from loyal customers, and hence, it is vital to retain customers. The key to retain customers and convert them to loyal customers is customer engagement, which is sort of a step-by-step process. First, use your social media handle to reel in customers with the help of exclusive content. And by exclusive content, we mean unique and catchy content that compels customers to check it out. Also, hire a mobile app development company to build an app for your business to cover maximum number of users. Second, avoid creating dummy content with non-interactive components, and rather focus on building content that engages customers in real-time. Ask them to leave their opinions, suggestions, what your brand lacks at, how they liked your recently launched product or service etc., in the comments sections. This works every time because people like to go for what they believe in or connect with. Using social media channels, like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn etc., you can connect directly with your followers.
Hiring made Easy
If you are a small business, you are probably already looking for an expansion in team size, or simply put, you are open for recruitments. And since you are a small entity yet, you definitely don't want to spend a lot on recruitment. Well, social media is the solution for you.
Another positive aspect of Facebook is that you totally own your business page and are free to post any sorts of ads, casual posts, or even ads for recruitment. The two most recommended social media tools in this case would be Facebook and LinkedIn. On Facebook, there are numerous communities and groups put together exclusively for job opportunities for aspirants. And thanks to mobile app developers, aspirants can find your ads on-the-go. This is probably the most cost-efficient way of hiring suitable candidates. LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a more streamlined interface for jobs, and the user sometimes has to pay for services on LinkedIn. So, LinkedIn or Facebook? Your call.
Social media has become an integral part of the small business strategy, especially with the kind of new trends coming up. Playing economically is the need of small businesses, and for that purpose, free social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, are viable options. However, we have seen big social media platforms like Orkut, being vanquished by the existing ones, which brings us to the possibility of history repeating itself. So, if your plan is to focus only on a single social media platform for your marketing needs, we would recommend you consider other options as well.
Author bio:Lokesh Chandra K N works as a Technical Content Writer at FuGenX Technologies, - a part of USM Business Systems Inc. - which is world's leading mobile app Development Company in USA. As an experienced technical writer, he is capable of providing content for various static and trending topics in the technology space.
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