Benefits of Social Media for Small Businesses

Many small businesses are increasingly focusing on the web when it comes to making their brand a success. It’s easy to see why when you take a look at the extreme success of various online businesses and take into account that almost every high street retailer also has a website which allows them to operate online in tandem with their brick and mortar store. Setting up a website gives you an edge. It allows customers to order goods from you from the comfort of their own home. This is the ultimate form of convenience, especially if you offer next day delivery options. A webstore also allows you to operate round the clock. You no longer have to work with strict opening and closing times, as you can leave an online store unmanned and operating twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Then you can open up your brand to a worldwide market of consumers with the simple addition of international shipping options! However, your brand’s online presence has the potential to reach so much further than a website alone. You can also incorporate other forms of media into your business strategies in order to make profit. For now, let’s focus on social media. Here are just a few of the benefits that it can bring to your venture.

Facebook

Facebook is perhaps the most popular form of social media. It has approximately 2.2 billion users active every single month. So, this may well be the best place to start if brand exposure is what you’re looking for. When setting up a profile for your business on social media, make sure to establish that you are a business at the start of the page setup. This will give you access to more appropriate profile editing options that can benefit you as a brand. Perhaps the main benefit of Facebook (besides exposure) is that you can add certain details to your page’s profile which help customers to receive the best possible customer service that you can provide. Your profile can detail your store’s physical location (including address and postcode) so that customers can make their way to your brick and mortar store without hassle. You can also add a contact number and contact email address so that they can contact you easily. Then there’s the instant messenger option that you can activate. This means that customers can easily contact you, you will receive a notification, and you can respond to them as quickly as possible. You can then use your feed to give customers updates and put out announcements, such as sales, new lines, and special events.

Instagram

Another extremely popular form of social media is Instagram. This app specialises in the visual, which is particularly beneficial for online companies who only have visual representations of their goods to sell to their customers until they receive the real deal in the post after purchase. For the strongest Instagram presence possible, you need plenty of followers. The more followers you have, the more likes you will have on your posts. If consumers see that other consumers like something, it becomes increasingly desirable and they’re likely to want to purchase the goods that everyone else likes. However, cultivating these followers and likes is a little difficult to start with when you haven’t yet established a presence. Perhaps the best way to get started is to buy likes on Instagram. This will give your brand a presence, which will in turn generate more attention and more legitimate followers and likes.

Twitter

While Twitter isn’t necessarily automatically associated with brands, it’s an online powerhouse that you should engage with regardless. Twitter’s main benefit for companies is convenient communication. Tweets are capped at 140 characters, so it can be used for short and sweet exchanges with your customers and potential customers. More complex and lengthy conversations can be taken to the inbox feature. It can also be used for short announcements and updates for your followers. However, you can also take a controversial approach which brings mass attention to your brand. Just take a look at Denny’s twitter feed. Their comedic tweets have resulted in the fast food chain amassing 479,000 followers.

If you haven’t started engaging with social media on a professional level yet, it’s about time that you get around to it. After all, some of the most accessed apps have the potential to bring a ridiculous number of potential customers your way and also allow you the resources to keep in touch with them and make further sales!