Many people believe that social media marketing is only for big-brand companies. However, a small business can benefit greatly from a well-thought-out social media marketing campaign. Furthermore, just about every type of business can use social media. Retail stores, cafes, cosmetic surgeons and many other service providers can all build their online reputation by using social media platforms. Social media platforms give businesses the chance to be easily accessible to customers, personable, and accountable for their actions. What’s more, social media marketing campaigns are very cheap. This article contains five things that a small business can do in order to capitalize on social media marketing techniques.
1. Use local social networks. If you run a small local business, listing your business on Yelp can have a huge impact on your annual sales figures. Yelp lets businesses create listings which contain contact information, opening hours and details about the services offered. A business’s previous customers can then post reviews and comments about the business on Yelp. Many internet users now use local social networks in order to help them to find businesses in their neighborhood, so it is important that local business get listed on these networks.
2. Build and write a blog. By posting engaging, informative content related to your business’s niche on a blog, you can increase your business’s reputation and invite potential buyers to comment on your posts. You can then use your blog to redirect people to your business’s main website. You do, however, need to make sure that you regularly update your blog and that every blog post provides some value for readers.
3. Create a Twitter account for your business. Twitter lets you communicate with consumers in real-time via internet browsers, desktop applications and mobile devices. Short promotional Tweets can be a very effective marketing tool, but you need to make sure that you offer your Twitter followers a reason to keep following you. Therefore, you need to post Tweets that have some charisma. Do not just boring sales pitches.
4. Create a Facebook fan page for your business. A fan page allows you to interact with your customers and provides you with a simple way to keep customers up-to-date with your business’s products, services and promotions.
5. Create a video about your business and upload it to YouTube. Make sure that the video is high quality and consider creating additional videos to showcase all of the products and services that your business offers. YouTube has millions of active users, so it is vital that your business has a presence on the site.
There are many more ways in which a small business can utilize social media platforms, but the five listed above are a great starting point. Once you start seeing how effective social media marketing can be, you can begin to invest some money in creating a larger, ongoing marketing campaign. Most importantly, you should start taking some action today, because most of your competitors are already utilizing social media platforms and getting customers that could be yours.