Why Your Small Business Needs Social Media

Social Media seems to be of paramount importance in society today, some may even see it as the most important aspect of their life.  First thing upon waking up in the morning, many people check their different social media apps before anything else … even coffee! Some people have built vast followings and generated great wealth via social media, simply from having a huge number of followers, via influencing and advertisement. Some may see social media as detrimental to society and one's health, but whichever way you feel about social media in the world today, one thing is certain, social media can be incredibly important for your small business, and a very powerful tool which can enable you to grow.  

A social media presence is imperative for any small business, it gives potential clients an easy way to check on your company, and it’s the go to way for many people when they hear of a new brand in order to quickly find out more.  This first point of call is of critical significance, a good first impression is vital, and as a smaller business who may not have the huge budget of others, who can’t afford expensive search engine optimisation and paid advertisements, social media is a cost effective and essential tool in your kit, and should be utilised with huge importance. 

One of the most important impacts of social media in today's world lies within its ability to distribute information to the whole world instantly. If used effectively, social media can help make your business hugely successful, helping your company to reach more and more people, and ultimately grow into a global powerhouse … just like us ha!  Even though the extreme usage of social media is a debatable topic, we must never overlook the importance of social media and the immense opportunities that it provides its users with. So here in today’s article we are going to be looking at why social media is important (in particular) for anyone running a small business, and the reasons why you should be utilising this technology to its maximum potential. 

Firstly, let's talk about communication, social media enables your company to enjoy direct contact with a certain target audience, this may sound obvious, but we shouldn’t underestimate how important this critical aspect is with regard to the running of a successful business. Without people, that is, without potential clients and customers, your company will fail, - they are the lifeblood of any important industry and the sole reason any company in the world generates profit. 

So, communicating with these potential clients is the first step in any business transaction, and thanks to social media platforms, you don't have to meet face to face with endless individuals (although this is very important too) who may not even be interested in the first place.  You don’t even have to call or email people, with almost the whole world on social media, it is now possible that your target audience is simply a click away, with a direct line of communication from you to them already established, and that is a very powerful thing. 

The beauty of social media, if you understand how to use it effectively, is that by using hashtags, you can directly place your brand on your target audiences' radar, giving yourself an enormous potential reach using a very simple strategy. Communication is such an integral part of business, and the way you communicate via PR (which we have talked about in previous blogs), and utilising all the available social media platforms, you can intelligently and effectively communicate with your followers and prospective target audience, quickly and efficiently. 

This leads us onto our next point.  By utilising the power of social media and communicating with the world digitally, you are effectively going to be increasing the popularity of your brand with relevant ease, it will come naturally. It’s not some abstruse form of nuclear physics, it’s simple.  The more people you reach, the more recognisable your brand will be. The more people who see your content will increase the chance that they will be returning viewers, and if you uphold a consistent and effective social media presence, your popularity will grow organically, which will be the natural effect of more people seeing your work. 

For individuals within the content and digital marketing arena, the ability to attract popularity is what matters most. The many different social media platforms available provide a wide cross section of people, and that is precisely what you should be looking for, the opportunity for increased exposure. Utilising different strategies, like asking questions and posting polls at certain times of the day, on a consistent basis will ensure steady growth, the more you post on social media, the more the algorithms will make your content available.  They reward the most active accounts with higher visibility, so putting out simple, engaging posts daily will ensure that your brand is being ranked highly within the platforms system, and therefore, popularity will be a natural effect of that. Even though it requires some investment of time and effort, the returns are worth it, and at the end of the day, once you get the ball rolling with social media, it's easy to keep on top of.  The hardest part is getting that initial momentum, but when the engagement picks up, and the likes, comments and followers start flying in, it will all be worth the effort, trust us. 

Since there is a wide diversity of active people on social media, the scope for diverse traffic is also broadened. Optimising social media can ensure that you receive visits and traffic from various people of all demographics to your website and other outlets. Modern day humans are generally on their phones most of the time, therefore with the right strategy, it is highly likely that people will come across your brand in one way or another, and with proper usage of keywords and other SEO guidelines, you can optimise your chances of receiving heavier and better-quality traffic.

Social media is also very important in developing a lasting image for your brand by producing quality content that makes a good first impression for your company, leaving an imprint on the viewer's mind, and using social media is the best way to go about doing that. Granted, people do look at their emails too, but how often can we find people spending hours surfing through their emails? In contrast, people love spending countless hours surfing through social media on their phones, hence, if you can optimise your work effectively here, you will likely leave your mark.

Another effective way social media platforms benefit businesses is by providing the means to collaborate with appropriate and similar accounts. Today, there are many influencers on every social media platform, each open to promoting products they deem fit for their followers. Businesses looking to grow their online presence usually contact such influencers, who may share their content on their own pages, bringing heavy traffic to the business account.   No other medium is more effective at collaborating in this way than by utilising the benefits of social media. 

Another aspect of social media that fuels its importance amongst small businesses is the option to investigate the viewers of any published content, to gain insights into all kinds of useful information.  All the different social media platforms have their own respective tools available to analyse certain aspects of the account’s traffic, and these should be utilised to gain a better understanding of who it is that’s viewing your company's content.  For example, content creators can view a posts insights, where you can view the demographics of the audience, learning which posts were the most popular and why.  You can also see which parts of a video were most viewed, and what the optimal times for posting are, etc  All of these details can be used in future posts to improve your feed.  

Another great reason why you should use social media with regard to your small business is for inspiration, since most business pages are public, one can quickly go through their feeds and gain inspiration from the way they do things. Seeing content from even a competitor's view, you can learn how you can offer something that they may not be offering, or maybe you have similar ideas but feel you can do things better, - it’s not that you want to copy, but rather innovate and improve certain ideas. Viewing others’ relevant content can be a catalyst for inspiration and can help your company develop fresh new perspectives and ideas. Furthermore, if your account is not doing exceptionally well compared to a competitor’s account for example, you can analyse their feeds and see what they might be doing differently, or even find important things that maybe you have missed with your content?  Improving certain aspects of your work, and fixing any problems may help boost your popularity immensely.

But let's not forget the fun aspect of social media too, it is accessible by all, and many people use it solely for entertainment purposes, it can be simply used for fun so don’t forget that. There is so much more to social media than just work, communication and branding. Sometimes, all people want is a little bit of entertainment at the end of the work day, and we should play on that. Social media platforms provide tired individuals with customised feeds consisting of memes, news, and short clips distributed via complex algorithms based on the user's own online activity, so take advantage of that. Create short and funny videos aimed at people who you think could be potential clients and customers, it provides a much-needed break from their busy schedules and thus ‘kills two birds with one stone’ so to speak.  Your content entertains them whilst raising your brand awareness, and hopefully, gaining a new follower and potentially, generating future custom. 

So, there you have another go-to, gung-ho, Goho masterclass, this time on why social media is important for your small business.  So what are you waiting for?  There are 4.76 billion social media users on the internet as we are writing this article, all waiting to see your content, and for any small business looking to grow … that is a potential goldmine.