In the era of online worlds, social pages are wonderful tools for small and medium companies (SMBs) because they help to compete with larger market rivals. It’s natural for all entrepreneurs to look for new options of increasing the brand’s awareness and engaging new customers so social media marketing (SMM) is a viable way, generally.
Talking about numbers, there are more than 2.5 million active social accounts worldwide today. And small teams can boost their engagement rates with well-planned SMM strategies to find new leads, convert them, and get increased profits eventually. As a result, more people will learn about your product or service and some will become the brand’s advocates.
This article is to list the primary advantages of proper SMM for small businesses. Additionally, you will find useful tips on preparing and starting your own campaign.
Basics of SMM
Starting from simple things, we can’t miss the concept of media and its correlation with SMBs. Put simply, a social system is a platform where different users can interact with each other. They can create blogs or personal accounts, send private messages, leave comments, explore content created by other users, and so on. Marketers should be interested in these primary social media systems:
- Facebook – all types of content.
- Twitter – short texts, GIFs, and pics.
- Instagram – images and videos.
- LinkedIn – content for industry professionals.
- YouTube – various videos.
- Less popular examples: Pinterest, Medium, Vkontakte, Telegram, etc.
When it comes to SMM, we understand this term as a set of strategies and methods focused on the usage of social networks to promote the business, its products or services. These platforms also used for direct interaction with the audience.
Professional approach should include proper research of clients, their interests and wishes. With this data, managers can design media campaigns with specific content types and schedules. It’s also suggested to focus on SEO.
Small Teams and Their SMM Advantage
For SMBs, marketing is crucial because companies can improve the brand’s presence, increase the number of customers, and retain current clients simultaneously. In 2016, there were 90% of firms that considered SMM as an important option for the business. Among all respondents, 82% were companies with <100 employees.
Small companies are unique because they have a much better connection with customers. Usually, these teams feature only a few employees, are fresh, open-minded, and ready for dialogue. They respond quickly in messages and discuss issues in comments to improve products/services. In this case, large corporations are less focused on end users.
Precisely, there are a few reasons why SMBs should opt for SMM and why they can get significant benefits out of it:
- Cost-efficient advertising strategies. While there are different paid ad tools, social media pages are free. You can start with the company’s profiles in top-rated networks and then use built-in ads to deliver info to a wider circle of users. Thus, there’s no need to spend extra money on irrelevant advertising
- Focus on the community. A lot of SMBs focus on high involvement in their target communities. Employees can directly talk with clients via social media pages, solve the mentioned issues, and deliver the most desired updates. In addition, it’s easy to get feedback via polls, comments, and reviews.
- High level of personalization. Continuing the previous idea, we should mention that small teams are all about personal attention. They not only talk with communities but they interact with each given client in a different manner. Hence, users feel more engaged as they receive tailored answers and, often, unique promo offers.
- Wide options for collaboration. Finally, SMBs can benefit from neighboring teams to improve the results of SMM strategies. Say, a local travel agency can deliver discount coupons from an affiliated motel. As well, small teams can cooperate with big brands by participating in their campaigns such as SBS by American Express.
Overall, good SMM refers to more engagement options, great viral potential, and better targeting. And we will repeat this fact: it’s totally free to use social networks!
Hints on Social Media Strategies
It should be clear now that SMM is a useful option for SMBs. But how you should organize the interaction in social networks? Let’s look at a few suggestions from experts:
- Start with a clear plan and the brand’s goals.
- Choose relevant platforms.
- Explore and target your audience.
- Post content regularly but don’t overload pages.
- Respond to comments and private messages.
- Cooperate with influencers.
- Encourage user-generated content.
- Track and measure performance.
Eventually, you will end up with a solid group of loyal clients. For this core, you even don’t have to utilize tricky tools. Just generate quality and useful content, insert some keywords, and use different delivery channels. Later, you can invest in advertising, pay to influencers, and integrate more complex management tools like CRM.
If you still don’t have a social account of your business, it’s the best time to start now!
Dmitry Reshetchenko is a Outreach Specialist for Diceus, a technology partner for developing enterprise solutions. He is passionate in his belief that a partnership with IT blogs is of great importance. Dmitry works mostly with Tech blogs.