If in 2023, your small business is not effectively making use of social media channels, then you are most definitely missing out in a big way. Not only are you failing to achieve the level of exposure you could attract, but you are almost certainly losing out on actual sales. If this is a mistake you are currently making, read on for more information about how to improve your situation.
The internet is no longer a ‘new’ tool that you can ignore. It’s been around for long enough for you to make good use of everything it has to offer, and if you haven’t done so, then you have either been misinformed about the potential wins you can secure from doing so or are simply just way behind the curve. Neither reason, or should we say excuse is particularly good reading.
Too Small to Bother With a Social Media Strategy?
There is a school of thought, or at least there used to be, that those with small or even medium businesses need not consider social media avenues as worthy of attention with regard to their growth, sales, or exposure.
Fortunately, in 2023, most have learned the error of their ways. Clearly, social media channels have billions of users, and there might have been a sense that a small-town operation didn’t need to waste its time with a global operation.
What people and businesses, on the whole, have learned is that adopting a targeted social media strategy is perhaps one of the safest and most efficient uses of a company’s time, money, and efforts as results are easily tracked and quantified, and the reasons to go down this route are plentiful, here are just a handful of ways to crack this particular nut.
Build Brand Awareness
Gone are the days of spending huge sums on TV, radio, or magazine ads. Or, if not gone, very much reserved only for very particular groups and companies of scale. Now your best shot at building a name for yourself, even in your own particular corner of the world, is via social media channels.
The costs of such campaigns via social media networks are a fraction of what you’d have previously paid with traditional advertising and promotional practices, and frankly, the results derived from old-school methods were patchy at best.
Pushing your brand to boost exposure in and around your vicinity (if your goods and services are specifically for a geographical location near your offices) is far easier on social media channels as you can target accordingly.
However, it’s more likely that the service you offer can actually be broadened by social media as opposed to restricted by it.
Shoot Your Own Adverts and Release Them Over Your Social Media Channels
You may incorrectly feel that shooting a promotional advert for your small business is unnecessary and a waste of time and money, but in 2023 the relatively low costs of producing an enticing ad and the ability to focus its exposure to specific locations and audiences make it a risk that is no longer a calculated one.
If your small business doesn’t have a social media team, you can simply outsource the project. Seek out the help of student filmmakers and bring in a video editor, both at a relatively low cost, and put together a piece that is brief but effective.
It’s now much easier to make a professional-looking product at a fraction of the cost you might expect, and the impact can be telling, especially in the small business market where your competitors may not be making as much of an effort in this field.
Making Your Business More Visible On Search Engines
If you are a small company that hasn’t made great use of social media thus far, then it’s a fair bet that you haven’t pushed on with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) either, in which case using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al. could be groundbreaking.
Posting via well-run social media pages will help drive traffic to your site and, in doing so, send the type of signals that Google (and Bing, if relevant) loves. In other words, real traffic users who are keen to engage with your products and services.
This will help you to appear more visibly on these engines for more relevant searches and search terms. In other words, it’s a win/win thing.
Securing Sales, Making Money
The idea of online shopping as little as a decade or two ago would have driven fear and suspicion in many. It was something that only a handful of people did, but now, in 2023, most of us do a great deal of our purchasing via our desktops and our mobile devices.
Using social media channels to promote the sales and services you offer can be hugely rewarding if done right. You won’t want your social pages flooded with promotional material; ideally, you’d provide a decent amount of enticing and informative content as well, but if you use the resource well, you should see a good uplift in sales from this path.
Pushing New Products and Driving Discussion
Maybe you are releasing a new product to the world or a service that you are really proud of, and you want to get the word out to the masses. What you might have previously done is produce mailouts or other arcane methods; now, you can take it to the mountain via your channels.
In addition to doing so, you can also invite feedback from your audience/customers, which will help you to get a sense as to what is working, and what needs addressing, and all of this should assist in making your operation far more efficient.
