A recent survey by Clutch revealed while 53% of small businesses are using social media, 47% are not. Data from Enplug, a digital signage software and social media wall provider, reveals one in three small business owners don’t think social media is important to their business. Yet, a survey of small businesses conducted by LinkedIn found three in five small businesses have gained new customers by using social media. So, which is it? Is social media the right marketing tool for small business?
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons.
Social Media for Small Business: The Pros
Social media marketing can help small businesses to…
- Amplify brand visibility
- Spread the reach of company news
- Engage new audiences
- Enhance organic SEO, helping your small business to…
- …Get found by web-surfing prospects
- Give customers a “behind the scenes” look at their company and culture
- Drive event attendance
- Foster growth
- Attract talent
- Strengthen customer relationships and increase brand loyalty
- Court leads
- Showcase thought leadership
- Communicate with existing audiences in new ways
- Make marketing more visual and interactive
Social Media for Small Business: The Cons
While there are many benefits to using social media for small business marketing, it is not without its challenges. Effective social media marketing requires…
- Additional bandwidth
- Ongoing content creation – from blog posts, to tweets, to Facebook updates, Instagram posts, etc.
- A multimedia-approach to marketing
- Competitor monitoring
- Engagement
- Community/reputation management
What it Takes for Small Businesses to Succeed with Social Media
Social media marketing requires small businesses to invest time and resources in consistently generating a stream of audience-centric, high quality content that is aligned with their overall marketing strategy. Since social media is a living, breathing organism, it requires consistent monitoring. Small businesses need to allocate resources to monitoring engagement, answering questions, addressing complaints, etc. While this requires additional companies to find additional bandwidth for marketing – and identify ways to generate new content on an ongoing basis – it can help to keep audiences engaged and strengthen brand loyalty.
Looking to implement a social media marketing program for your small business? We can help. And, we even have a social media marketing toolkit to helo you get started.
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