Social Media – It’s Too Much!

22 Mar Social Media – It’s Too Much!

What is Social Media? What is so scary about these two buzz words that has Small Business owners spooked?

I’ll tell you what “social media” is.. it’s just a bunch of tools. Tools that encourage relationships, ongoing engagement and it’s here to stay. It isn’t a phase like Pokemon Go. It isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s quite possibly the most powerful tool that any business owner can utilise to create a dialogue with their customers and drive revenue growth. What’s interesting however is that even though its a wide known fact how effective Social Media is for success and growth, you’d think all business owners are jumping onboard! NOPE! For the majority, their Facebook Pages are set up, Instagram accounts are created, logo images are uploaded as profile photos and then…the sound of crickets….. So the question is why aren’t small business owners doing more? You’d think the percentage of small business owners using social media or any form of digital marketing would be high but according to the 2016 Small Business Marketing Trends Report, only “Fifty-eight percent of small business owners are using social media in their marketing, but less than half are creating any other kind of content to help them get leads and sales”. Don’t know about you, but that number is alarmingly smaller than I expected.

So what’s got small business owners resistant to embracing Social Media when they are well aware of the power that these tools can bring to their business? The two biggest reasons we hear are  “its time-consuming” and “I don’t even know where to start, there are too many social platforms”. One of the insights from the 2016 Small Business Marketing Trends Report is that Small business marketing can be a lonely job where nearly half (47 percent) of small business owners handle marketing efforts on their own. What if i tell you that you don’t have to be on every single social media platform out there? Or that there are tools that you can use that aggregate platforms* so you can schedule posts ahead of time? This way you aren’t having to think of a post to deliver on a daily basis. You can plan way ahead which frees up your valuable time to focus on other tasks.

So of all the Social Media platforms out there, which do you use?

The answer is simple. It should be wherever your customers are. For example, if you own a restaurant, you need to be able to closely monitor online reviews so Yelp, Google Reviews or even Zomato is a must. According to MarketingSherpa  “Online adults aged 18-34 are most likely to follow a brand via social networking (95%). So it’s important to think about your audience and see where they are most likely to follow your brand.

If building a loyal customer base is important to your business (which it should be), then social media is an affordable and easy way to achieve this. Small businesses can’t afford to ignore social media. In today’s day and age, word-of-mouth includes “likes”, “shares” and “retweets”. According to Ambassador  71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. This is a great example of how you can use social media as an effective customer service tool to increase brand engagement and win new customers. Think of Twitter, a real time platform that allows you to quickly respond to your customer’s questions.

By all means, I’m not saying that Social Media is a piece of cake and that there is an easy formula to succeed at it. What I am saying is with a bit of engagement with your followers/customers and research into the time-saving tools out there, Social Media has benefits for your business that far outweigh the costs.

*Contact us for more information on how we can help you work out what platforms you can use to time save on your social postings. We at Efficient Media specialise in helping Small Business owners get started on their digital marketing efforts. We customise solutions for you at a budget that suits your needs.