Using Social Media to Grow my SMB

You’ve decided to take the advice from every person who knows about your business and dive into the world of Social Media. “Do you use Facebook?” My neighbor uses Twitter, do you use that?” My kids have something called Snapchat maybe you could use that.” We’ve all heard it.

Now comes to the difficult part, where do I start? If you know nothing of social media it can be overwhelming to use it for business, especially with platforms being created and changing everyday. I can assure you it is not difficult to learn and if you dedicate a little time you will see results coming directly from your social media strategy in no time.

No Plan, No Good

When adding anything to your business there has to be a specific reason why and Social Media is no different. Incorporating social media into your weekly quarterly, and annual goals should be the first step. You can have the best strategy, but if it does not line up with and help accomplish your specific goals it is a waste of time and resources.

When aligning social media strategy with your goals be as specific as possible. Wanting more customers or wanting more business is the obvious goal of your business. How does Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform help with that? Again, you don’t want to spend time creating and executing a social media strategy and having nothing to show for it.

Three Ways Social Media Can Help

Social Media can help in countless ways, but it’s important to keep your industry and your business in mind when creating a strategy. Just because it works for Nike or IBM does not mean it will or should work for you. Always look at new techniques through the eyes of your industry.

Three things we encourage SMB to use social media for are Reach, Social Listening, and Credibility. Between these three you can get access, learn to understand, and gain trust from potential customers.

Reach

Social Media is a great way to expand your current reach of potential customers. When done correctly you can reach thousands of people in your area. According to Commexis.com, 56% of Americans have a profile on a social networking site. If you were in a town of 1000, that’s 560 people. Not bad right? Think what it would take to reach those 560 people WITHOUT social media. It would take a lot more time and resources to get the same results.

It’s more than pure numbers, you can get specific with ads and boosted post. You want to target people who are within a certain age or interested in a certain topic you can focus more on them, instead of a general reach.

Social Listening

One of the most underrated and under utilized social media tactics is Social Listening. Understanding what customers and potential customers say and expect from you is very good insight to have.

Many believe it’s just reading reviews or looking at your social media mentions. While that is a small part of it, there is much more to it. According to Commexis.com, Only 33% of Americans have ever followed a brand in social media. This means your reach goes beyond your number of followers. Just because someone is not following you does not mean they are not considering, talking, or looking for you.

Using Social Listening tools through sites such as Sprout Social or Hootsuite allow you to do a number of social listening techniques. From keyword tracking to social network monitoring by location. If you’re looking for more details on Social Listening Hootsuite posted a very helpful blog post on certain techniques to use.

Credibility

In today’s society we go to the internet for all our information. If you do not pop up, you do not exist. Even when you do pop up sometimes that’s not enough. The more information that ties to you and your company the better.

Customers get to learn about you in a more casual setting than a phone call or a website that is constantly pushing you to request a quote or chat with a representative. Through your social media they get a chance to get a tone for your company and how you do business.

It gives potential customers an opportunity to learn about you before they give you a call or give you their business. You can also work with influencers in your industry to give your brand and company a boost to your target audience, more on that at in a later blog.

Where to Start

Now you have a better idea of what Social Media can do for you, but where do you start?

Ask yourself what you have the resources for. Do you have a dedicated person handling your Digital Marketing or will it be just you or another co-worker? What does your target audience and industry use and how? Answers you should know or be able to find easily.

We advise you do as much as you can consistently. Only thing worse than no social media presence is an inactive social media presence. If people visit your page and see nothing posted in over a month they will assume you haven’t done business in that long.

The biggest step is getting started. Digital Marketing, including Social Media, is an ever changing world. We are all learning a little as we go. Start a page and update your customers and target audience on your company, new services/products, events, and work in the community. This is a good place to start, but your industry and your vision for your company will dictate where you go from there.

Dont get discouraged if you don’t see an immediate following or results. All things worth doing are worth doing continually and there’s is no place where this is more true than Social Media Marketing.

Have additional questions? Feel free to contact us