Marketing is a battle amongst brands to occupy the headspace of their target demographic. When a consumer thinks of a specific product or service, you want them to associate that product or service with your brand over the competitors. One of the best methods to help win this battle is Social Media Marketing.
Social Media Marketing has come of age in the last few years. This is mainly imperative for smaller businesses to comprehend because social media has steamrolled the playing field to the fact that smaller brands now have an unpretentious chance of competing on the same platform as their larger competitors.
If you still feel that social media is a waste of time, here are a few numbers to show why you could be missing out on an excellent opportunity to engage with your target leads and reach more than one probable customer by abandoning social media.
- Social media has 3.5 billion active users worldwide as of December 2019
- 79% of the US population has a social profile
- 97% of consumers aged 18-34 read online reviews to judge a local business
Why Social Media?
Social media is where your ideal customer lives presently. They don’t just live there, they are active social media users, and making purchases as they interact on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and more. You must reach your ideal customer wherever they are. As you generate more awareness through social media, you build attention, which in turn creates sales.
Social media has grown into the primary driver of internet actions, and every online industry revolves around it. Therefore, it is essential to learn how you can build your brand through it. If millions of people are active on Facebook alone, then there is no doubt that social media has become the support of digital marketing.
How to Use Social Media to Market your Small Business?
Social media is treasured for businesses of any industry or size, and finding customers on social media has a straight impact on sales and your revenue. Here are a few things you can do with the help of social media.
1.Start with a Strategy
Social Media tools are easy to use, and you can get started with free organic content. That might make it enticing to dive in and start posting. But like every worthy business strategy, using social media for small business success needs to start with a good plan. For example –
- Set social media goals and objectives
- Research the competition
- Conduct a social media audit
- Create a social media calendar
2.Decide which Platforms are Right for You
Don’t just make assumptions about where your audience spends their time online. Your instinct might tell you that if you are targeting millennials, you should skip Facebook and focus on Instagram and Snapchat. But the data shows that 84% of the millennials still use Facebook. To make sure you are using social media for business effectively, you must conduct some study of your own. This will help you to comprehend how your precise audience spends their time online.
3.Know your Audience
One reason why using social media for business is valid is that you micro-target your audience. But first, you need to know your audience. Start by accumulating data on your existing customers. Then, dig deeper with social media analytics. You will start to develop a true picture of who is buying from and interacting with you online.
4.Increase your Target Audience
Once you have a decent picture of who your target audience is, you can revisit your social media plan. It is time to look for ways to reach more people just like him. You can also use social media to bring in new customers to your local business.
5.Shape New Relationships
The unique advantage of social media marketing for a small company is that it lets you talk straight to followers and customers. You can build relationships over time, rather than requesting for sale bluntly. More than 40% of digital customers use social links to research new products or brands. Part of that encounter is getting to know who you are as a brand and what you stand for.
6.Share Gripping Visuals
People have come to imagine social posts to comprise of a visual constituent. The images shared on social drive real-world action. More than half of millennials and Gen Z internet users said their most recent fashion buys were based on images they saw on social media. You can also use photos of your customers to highlight how they use your service.
All in all, try to be as active as you can on social media, use quality over quantity, schedule your posts for time-management, monitor and respond to all the relevant social media conversations. Remember, you don’t need to do it all. Take an attentive approach. Start with one or two critical networks and build your social media marketing efforts over time.
We at Commitbiz help individuals start a business in the UAE. Should you decide to start one, contact us. We’d be happy to assist you.
