Social Media Marketing and Small Businesses

 

Social media marketing has been a blessing in disguise for small businesses with limited resources and which would otherwise not be able to conduct market research on their products and their targeted customers’ response to them. The publicity, marketing reach, and customer relations made possible via social media has been an answer for many entrepreneurs and small businesses.

There are plenty of avenues to pursue in using social media as a marketing tool, but it is also a very real possibility to bite off more than you can chew if you use too many platforms. However, focusing only on one platform can be just as dangerous if for example the account is deleted or banned from the site.

Small businesses need to know what their target audience is and which sites they are more attracted to in order to tailor their social media marketing to them. Each site has its strength and a business owner can play to them to reach a wider target and to relate with his or her customers. For example, Pinterest provides a very visual platform which can be helpful for some businesses. Twitter and Facebook provide excellent avenues to communicate with customers and get feedback.

 The platform to use will depend on the target audience after which it is important to make connections and keep them up, which means constantly updating your page and keeping it interesting. In connection to this, one of the most important things to do with social media is to provide content that is interesting without being full of fluff. Content posted should be helpful and meaningful without sounding like excerpts of an encyclopedia.

Of the content published, 80 percent should be about the interests of the customers. This would earn them the right to talk about their products or businesses in the other 20 percent of the content. Consistency is something that will go a long way in promoting social media marketing for small businesses and responding to the comments given by the audience will help grow the community and expand your networks. Despite the fact the relationships built on social media are sometimes superficial, they help build a small business as the customers regard you as a friend.

Leads Direct provides quality business leads at 40-80% off retail prices so you can grow your business quickly and increase your ROI. Contact Leads Direct today!