Date Published: 7-Jun-2014 | By: Nancy R Jones

In today’s Internet age and with the growing popularity of social media, it has become important for businesses especially small businesses to have a strong social media presence to engage and connect with customers and get exposure to their brand. According to a report published by E-strategy Trends, 92% of small businesses say the social media is an effective tool for attracting new customers and engaging existing customers.

If implemented correctly, social media marketing can be very helpful to your small business. Here are a few points to explain how social media marketing can be helpful for small businesses.

Reach out to large number of people
According to WeAreSocial, around 27% of world’s population uses social media i.e., every one among four people in the world is using any of the social media networking website. With so many people present on social media, it is an opportunity for businesses, especially for small businesses to reach out to millions of users and showcase their product/service/brand.

Inexpensive way of branding
The best advantage of social media marketing is that it is much cheaper than traditional marketing. It serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for small businesses to implement marketing campaigns to promote their brand and generate leads. 85% of corporates say that social media has given their business more exposure (Source: SocialMediaExaminer). The popular social networking platforms like Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Twitter, etc., are powerful tools for small businesses to promote their products/services and increase exposure of their brands.

Customer acquisition
It is proven that social media websites can acquire customers when executed properly. According to Socialmediatoday, in 2013,

• 36% of all marketers have found customers via twitter
• 52% of all marketers have found customers via Facebook
• 43% of all marketers have found customers via LinkedIn

By posting best offers and deals on your business’ social media page, you can attract new customers. Educating them with useful information or tips and techniques about your products would build trust among the customer and makes them spread word of mouth.

Don’t forget to provide link to your website that encourages prospects to visit your website and then convert. Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing.

Enables one-to-one customer interaction/customer service
Social media websites enable one-to-one interaction with customers and help businesses provide personalized advice to their customers. When customers see your responsiveness, they view you as trustworthy – remember, people buy from those who they trust. This trust leads to more recommendations and higher sales. More than 50% of small businesses say that social media websites are helpful in providing one-to-one customer service to their customers (source: Socialmediatoday).

Social media is growing at a faster pace than ever before, a properly planned and effectively targeted social media marketing campaign can help your small business thrive and succeed.