The Value of Social Marketing for Small Businesses – Part 2
by Pat Price

If I could show you how to accelerate your marketing efforts for free, you’d be interested, wouldn’t you? Social media offers the opportunity to build on your marketing program at no cost, if you are willing to invest some of your time, instead of money. By adding social media to your marketing program, you may see more of an impact on your bottom line! 

Last month I outlined a number of benefits to Social Media Marketing (SMM). If you weren’t convinced, here are even more: 

Show thought leadership in your industry or niche 

When you think about it, there are only of a couple of things that will convince people to do business with you. First, they have to know that you offer the service or product they need. This is why we all work so hard to create brand awareness. We invest time, energy and money into letting people and businesses know what we do and how well we do it. But, it doesn’t stop there. Even if they are aware that we offer that product, they need to be convinced that we’re the right choice for them. And that usually comes with credibility. If prospects know of us, but are not convinced we can perform to their level of satisfaction, we’ll never get the sale. That's why this second piece of the equation is so important. Here's the good news. There has never been a tool so powerful in establishing credibility so quickly, with so many, as social media marketing. 

Once we get out there and start joining groups, answering questions, and posting useful and meaningful information on the Internet, we build our authority in our specific business or industry. The more we share valuable information, the more we’re perceived as helpful, go-to businesspeople. This helps to establish us as innovators and thought leaders. And the benefit is that our businesses will be viewed as innovative, vibrant, and in-tune with the times. We will be perceived as authorities, thereby building more credibility for ourselves and our businesses.

 By the way, it isn’t necessary to position yourself as “the expert” across the entire Web. If your business is a local one, stay focused on your local geography. Show thought leadership by positioning yourself as the expert in your particular town for your particular industry.  

Convey and Increase Brand Awareness of Your Business 

I mentioned that one of the aspects of persuading prospects to buy from you is the prerequisite that they know of you. The beauty of establishing thought leadership through SMM is that you have the side benefit of increasing awareness of your business, as well. I don’t want to promote “pushing” your advertising message and promotions through SMM. It’s a fine line you walk between being “social” and being “pushy”. So this is done sparingly and in the appropriate way. (More on how to follow SMM etiquette in a future newsletter.) But, be aware that you can do all of the following in SMM: 

·        Advertise weekly specials, sales, new product or service offerings through blogs, bulletins, article postings, conversations on sites, etc.

·        Announce new products

·        Market new products/services

·        Gain insight on how to improve products and services

·        Put a name and face on your company or brand

·        Generate positive word-of-mouth and feedback about your brand, product or service  

Optimize Your Web Site 

There is yet another benefit to engaging in SMM. Social media content and conversations can help improve search engine rankings or search results, which can result in more traffic to your site. We encourage you to include links back to your site for your detailed content. That can help generate traffic and convert visitors into leads and hopefully to more sales. It will also increase inbound links, increasing your site’s popularity.  

The first step is to get started!