Many small businesses are becoming active on social networks like never before. They are expected to invest more money to advertise on major social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in 2014.
Small-businesses still have ample work to do for building up a meaningful social media presence.
More than 30 percent of the 1,170 small-business surveyed said they yet to have a website.
Of the nearly 70 percent that have own websites, more than 55 percent have not optimized for smartphones.
Small businesses with at least 25 employees must use social media for advertising. With the right social media marketing strategies, small businesses can reap rich dividends.
Social media is becoming all-pervasive and small businesses that ignore social media will lose heavily to competition. The writing on the wall is clear.
Small businesses need to evolve a more strategic, relationship-building approach. HootSuite is a social media management dashboard that aids businesses simplify and automate social media marketing campaigns.
Advertising on social media can be cumbersome if your small business is running a campaign simultaneously on multiple platforms. Pricing Engine will help you streamline the entire process. You can create a single ad and use it on multiple social media sites.
Small businesses should integrate social media in their marketing efforts. Small businesses should choose just a couple of social media like Facebook, Twitter. LinkedIn and Pinterest and dedicatedly focus on them.
But bear in mind that the social media sites you select should predominantly comprise of your target audience.
LinkedIn can be ideal for sourcing leads and finding like-minded small business owners who can help you solve problems.
Twitter should easily be the first choice for professional service businesses looking to project themselves as experts and thought-leaders. Facebook certainly works best for the retail and hospitality sectors – particularly if your business does promotional offers.
To succeed in social media marketing, you should set realistic goals. It is quite easy to get frustrated if your SMM strategies do not fetch results. You cannot expect ROI from social media too quickly.
Experts opine that six months is a realistic time frame to test whether a social media marketing campaign is working for your small business. Building a reputation and a community around your brand should be your long-term goal.
You have to painstakingly build a community of loyal customers and keep them constantly engaged. 80% of your content should be about building relationships and developing rapport with your customers/prospect s. The remaining 20 percent of your content can be about your small business, your brand, your products etc.