7 Reasons Why Small Businesses Need a Strong Social Media Presence

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Are you aware that according to 90% of all marketers, marketing through social media has helped them increase their business exposure and brand awareness? Did you know that 66% of marketers reported a significant increase in finding leads just by spending at least six hours on social media networks per week?

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, what you’re selling, or to whom you’re selling it to—social media has become an important tool in modern business marketing. The internet has made a lot of markets way more crowded and competitive than it used to. This goes across every industry. However, the internet has also given us social media, a tool that we can use to reach as many customers as possible.

Nowadays, if you’re not incorporating social media into your marketing strategy, you’re only limiting your company’s exposure to potential customers and a lot of business opportunities. Basically, not having a strong social media presence is like putting money into local print ads and wondering why your competitors are getting so much recognition all across the country.

But why is social media so important in modern business marketing? What makes it so great that virtually every business today, big or small, is essentially putting a lot of stock on it? Here are a few reasons why your small business needs to start marketing through social media:

1. Social media is where your leads are.

Modern marketing is all about finding new leads to feed the business’ pipeline. These leads, once captured, can be converted into paying customers. Leads are essentially prospects; future customers that will help carry your business to the next level. But in order to convert leads and increase your conversion rate, you have to find them first. This is where social media comes in.

Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are ripe with leads, a.k.a. potential customers. Regardless of your industry, social media networks are where most of your leads can be found. It is here that you will be able to attract leads, pique their interest with engaging and relevant content, and convert them into sustainable customers/clients.

According to Statista, of the entire population of the US alone, around 70% has at least one social media account. By 2021, experts believe the number of social media users worldwide will grow to around 3.1 billion. Think about that for a minute. That is a huge market.

Obviously not all of them might be interested in whatever you’re selling, but the majority of your target audience are surely in that huge group. You just have to find them, connect with them, and turn them into followers.

1. Social media can help increase awareness for your brand.

Another excellent reason for marketing through social media is brand awareness, a.k.a. brand recognition. Social media marketing is the new SEO. With proper utilization, it can help businesses gain visibility and therefore increase recognition for their brand. The key here is to use the platform wisely and responsibly.

Your social media profiles/accounts are the face of your brand. They are a gateway for your target audience to reach you and vice versa. By posting engaging and quality content, you are giving your target audience an opportunity to get to know your brand on a more personal level.

Before you know it, your followers will organically grow and they themselves will become your brand ambassadors, representing your business by sharing your content and their own experiences with your products and/or services. This is how you find more leads and build up your pool of prospects.

1. The varied social media channels allow you to target specific audiences.

A blanketed marketing approach is no longer as effective as it once was. In the age of social media, the more target your marketing efforts are, the better. And the different social media channels allow you to reach specific markets/audiences that would otherwise be unreachable through conventional means.

Social media marketing enables marketers to strategically target specific audiences based on the social channels your brand is most active in. Instead of just sharing your post and marketing your message for everyone to view, you can focus your efforts on your target audience instead, whether it’s a specific age range, demographic, geographical location, gender, profession, and so on.

What you can do is create a list of your target audience through demographic values. The more detailed the list is, the better it will be. This list may include the abovementioned specifics, i.e. age, gender, location, profession, interests, hobbies, etc. Identifying these values will provide you with a better understanding on which social media channel you should focus your efforts on and give you an idea on how to reach them more effectively.

1. Social media users are more receptive to the messages you’re trying to dish out.

Active users on social media platforms tend to be more receptive to certain messages and marketing campaigns. This is because social media networks often provide fun and excitement while getting in touch with friends, family, and followers, as well as staying connected with the goings on in the world.

Needless to say, users on these platforms do not expect to be marketed to. There’s nothing worse than going through your feed and being bombarded with ads that do not concern you. However, if they so happen to come across one of your posts, and they find it useful and relevant to their situation, you have just piqued the interest of a potential lead.

Just because social media platforms are originally meant for socializing and building networks doesn’t necessarily mean users don’t follow their favorite brands. On the contrary, many users on social media actually follow and endorse brands they like. These are often referred to as social influencers.

1. Social media marketing can help boost your inbound traffic.

The social media profiles you create for your business are gateways for your followers to gain access to your main website. When used properly, your social media profiles can help increase your inbound traffic, which can organically improve your website ranking on search engines. Social media marketing is essentially a great complement for your SEO efforts.

Think about it this way, every compelling and relevant content piece—be it an article, an image, infographic, or whatnot—your post on social media is simply another way to increase the daily visitors to your business website. Now, not all of them will buy something, obviously. However, the engagement alone will help improve your ranking on search results, and you didn’t even have to spend any money on it.

1. Marketing through social media is a cost-effective solution.

This is why a lot of small businesses and startups turn to social media to market their products and/or services. Social media marketing doesn’t require huge financial investment. What it takes away from you, however, is time. It takes time to setup social media profiles, create compelling content, and engage with followers.

However, the time aspect of social media marketing can easily be remedied. There are a lot of social media tools and software solutions that enable marketers to automate the releasing of content as well as create automated responses to standard queries. You don’t have to address every basic question posted by your followers.

Other businesses use third-party agencies that specialize in social media marketing to handle all their social media. This may require financial investment, but it’s still nowhere near the cost of most media marketing endeavors. To date, social media is still the most cost-effective tool for business marketing.

1. Social media marketing can help boost your search engine rankings.

Even though this is clearly related to point number 5, social media helping to increase inbound traffic, it is still worth mentioning as increased inbound traffic affects search engine rankings. While reading this article, there’s a good chance you’re already invested in developing and improving your SEO marketing strategy. Now, you can use social media to bolster that strategy.

Did you know the recent updates on Google’s algorithms include social media presence as one of the factors in their rankings? The majority of websites that rank higher on search engine results tend to have a robust social media presence. That is not a coincidence.

The web traffic that is being generated from your social media profiles to your main website is telling Google there is value and relevance to your content, therefore there is a good chance that it will place your website higher on the SERPs the next time users do a Google search using keywords related to your industry and/or content.

That is how you organically increase your search rankings through social media marketing, without investing heavily on SEO strategies, tools, and specialists. And if you’ve already invested in those things, this is how you maximize your ROI.