Despite its size, social media has become indispensable for most small businesses today.
Before explaining the significance of social media for startups or small businesses in detail, let’s shed some light on the major importance of social media networks; i.e its vast online presence.
Over one-third of the world’s population use social networks for communication and socialization. The graph of users is trending upward each and every day, and it’s becoming more business-oriented than ever.
The Importance of Social Media for Startups
Social media caters to the needs of every type of business, but especially for smaller enterprises. Startup businesses can connect with potential customers and pitch their products/services to the people most likely to purchase.
No matter what niche you occupy, social media offers perks for all kinds of startups. Whether you are B2B or B2C, you can hardly go wrong with thoughtful social media marketing.
There are three major benefits startups can leverage via social media networks.
1. Spread Brand Awareness
People prefer to buy products from a brand they know and trust. The more brand awareness you have, the more the chance of selling your product or services.
Social media platforms are quintessential when it comes to generating awareness. It’s amazing to see how videos and posts can reach millions of people overnight.
If you create engaging content, it will capture people’s attention. However, startup owners need to work hard when it comes to popular social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where millions of people upload new content daily.
People can get overwhelmed with the abundance of content. It’s no small feat to hold attention.
Here’s a simplified list of solutions that will help generate more awareness for your small business.
- Content such as videos, images, and articles will cut through the newsfeed and get more reach. Try to use such content types for your business campaigns. However, don’t focus on the amount you put into your content feeds. Instead, incline your feeds toward quality…even if it requires spending some money.
- Quality and thoughtful content separate the best marketers from the crowd.
- Another thing that will boost your online presence is to have a good brand awareness strategy.
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- To create that, you need to first understand what your audience is interested in, how they acknowledge your brand, and what can motivate them to click through to your page or product info. The better you answer such questions, the better you can develop your content.
- There are now more social media platforms out there than ever. Making use of every medium is nearly impossible. Even if you can, you shouldn’t. It’s useless to invest your time on a social media site where you have few or zero potential customers.
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- Choose the right platform based on your niche, desired audience, and social media marketing goals.
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- For instance, what is the one big thing you expect from your social media campaigns? Is it new customers…or higher sales?
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- Do you want new customers to find out about your services? Do you hope to bring more local shoppers into your stores? Being specific with your brand awareness strategies can help you determine which social media channels are the best fit for your business.
2. Target Your Advertising
One powerful thing about marketing on social media is paid advertising. Social media ads can move you closer to your goal of increased sales and revenue. Engagements and online presence are important, true, but online advertising is where you get the biggest bang for your buck.
Social media platforms allow you to run targeted ads, ensuring your campaigns reach out to specific individuals who will be more interested in your services.
The most popular and widely used social media platform, Facebook, allows you to customize your audience with built-in advertising segmentation. For example, you can choose viewers based on age, gender, education, location, marital status, parents, non-parents, and more. This is one reason why Facebook is a favorite platform for businesses.
Of course, there are other social media platforms to choose from when advertising. Each has its unique advantages, as mentioned below:
LinkedIn sponsored posts consisted of company updates, landing page click baits, and more.
Twitter is a platform where people talk about anything and everything. Ads displayed on user posts are based on their interests. Marketers run paid ads based on what trends globally or in their location.
This platform is a highly engaging site where people post stories, reels, longform videos, and more. It’s an excellent medium for small-scale businesses as they not only can advertise their product but can also directly sell their product to customers. Businesses on Instagram promote their products and services through paid ads or with the help of influencers.
Snapchat
The Snapchat social network is famous for short stories that disappear within a few seconds. It’s also popular for its extraordinary face filters. Businesses choose these platforms to target younger demographics as they are the most active users of Snapchat.
3. Build Relationships With Your Audience
Any successful business owner or entrepreneur can tell you how crucial it is to build good customer relationships. The better relationship you have with your customers, the longer they stick with your brand and choose your products. This may sound easy, but a lot of effort and process go into building customer satisfaction.
There are millions of brands that choose social networks to promote their products and services. To stand out, you’ll need to have a well-built plan. The following steps can help.
1. Listen and monitor.
Before you rush into posting and commenting on your feed, listen to what viewers and followers have to say about your brand. For that, you can use social media marketing software such as Hubspot, Budder, Sprout Social, and so on. Social media management tools help brands listen and filter the conversations of approximately 650 million people online.
Study what people say about your brand and your products or services. You can do the same for your competitors. Analyze and understand the topics people are most engaged with. Use your analytical data in defining your social media marketing campaigns.
2. Execute.
Once you’re aware of how people perceive your brand, you can develop an efficient and executable social media plan. Customize your marketing campaigns strategically. Create diverse content for different mediums.
Pay special attention to your approval and audit trail. Delegate different social media tasks to your team members such as strategizing, tailoring campaigns, and driving social awareness across distributed teams.
3. Engage in intentional conversations.
Spare some time in your social media marketing calendar for responding to customers. This is a crucial step for building brand trust and long-term customer relationships. Take part in customer conversations on your feed for every social media account you maintain.
Dedicate at least one employee to keeping an eye on trending and important social media discussions. Ask your team to organize these topics and label them by importance. Prioritizing tasks this way can save you valuable time.
4. Talk about your brand and offer behind-the-scenes information.
You can leverage customizable social media displays to let customers know more about your brand. When you share behind-the-scenes glimpses of what’s happening, you share your brand’s authenticity. This generates trust among your customers.
5. Use multiple devices to handle your business account.
Actively using your social media platforms from different devices provides insights that fuel a better customer experience. Ask team members to use your company account on all of their devices so they can engage with customers quickly and efficiently.
Conclusion:
Social media platforms have everything you need to make your small business grow. Use social media insights to improve overall marketing decisions, offer a top-notch customer care experience to your users, develop new customers or leads, and more.
If you aren’t using social media for your startup yet, it’s likely that you are leaving money on the table. Don’t wait any longer. Expand and scale your business by thoughtfully leveraging social media tools.
