5 Reasons You Should Use Social Media to Grow Your Small Business

Why do SMEs not use social media?

Social media’s explosive popularity is a recent phenomenon, so it is understandable that business owners don’t understand how important social media marketing has become.

However, it is now becoming one of the main ways that brands can develop their identity, and not just for younger demographics. 67% of UK adults actively use social media, so social media provides access to a wide variety of prospective consumers.

Business owners often avoid social media because they don’t understand how it can be used to optimise business or increase revenue, so they believe it’ll be a waste of time. However, statistics and experience show that these excuses are costing SMEs exposure, customers and revenue. 

We break down how social media marketing can be made easy and prove it can really work for your business.

67% of UK adults use social media – so why don’t you?

1. It lets you reach your target audience – even on a tight budget

Social media for business has two parts – organic and paid content. Organic content is the content you post to your own page, such the images on an Instagram profile.

This means that advertsing through social media can be very effective, for a very low cost.

Your organic content establishes a presence and allows you to interact with customers and influencers – individuals with a larger social media following that can promote your brand to their followers. It builds a brand image defined by the type of content you post, and allows you to associate certain ideas or lifestyles with your brand.

Even better, this doesn’t cost you anything on top of the time it takes to make the content, unlike paid advertising. 

On the other hand, sponsored posts or adverts can help you reach a wider audience. Paid content is just like traditional paper advertising – flyers or newspaper adverts – but even more effective. Just as you would only advertise in relevant publications that would be seen by your target audience, sponsored social media posts will only be seen by your target demographics.

For example, an advert for a make-up brand might only be seen by females who are under 45 and who have recently watched a make-up tutorial on YouTube.

This means that digital ads are one of the best ways to optimize marketing return on investment (ROI) as your ads will only be seen by consumers already likely to buy.

2. It builds brand identity and trust

Being visible online goes a long way to convince prospective customers you’re a reliable business and to be able to share your values with them.

If you take time to have a great social media presence, with real followers and good engagement rates (the number of likes, shares and comments), consumers are more likely to believe you can effectively deliver a great product or service for their money.

When 62% of millennials have said that online content through social media drives their loyalty to a brand – and therefore their purchases – developing a strong, value-driven presence will increase your revenue. 

This is also achieved by partnering with other brands and influencers which reinforces your brand identity and allows you to connect with their customer or fan base. 78% of consumers said that promotion by a person that they feel they know and trust would make them buy a product, so social media partnerships can have a huge financial impact.

3. It helps you communicate with your customers

A social media profile is, above everything, social. It’s communicative. It allows customers and prospective customers to interact with you, ask you questions and leave reviews.

As 77% of customers read online reviews, having great reviews about your business online massively increases the trustworthiness of your business.

Social media also makes it easy to reply to reviews. A key part of online presence management is protecting your reputation through dealing with customers’ negative experiences. Show that you are happy to help resolve any problems and customers will trust your business.

Through likes, comments, shares and messages, social media means you can constantly gather feedback from customers as well as answer their questions about your brand. Social media makes it easier than ever to see exactly what your customers like, or even ask them directly through polls and quizzes. 

4. It can directly increase profit

One of the main reasons why SMEs are reluctant to fully engage with social media is because they think it won’t make a difference to their business or revenue. As we have seen above, there are multiple ways in which a business can leverage social media, but do these tactics actually work to gain customers?

Social media is most effective for exposure for your brand. 90% of businesses reported that they felt that their exposure was increased by social media. If you feel like your business is not getting found by your target audience, then social media is the place to go.

52% of businesses say that social media positively impacted revenue. That means that over half of SMEs found that social media presence directly impacted their revenue – that’s a big number for a very easy process.

We also know that 53% of adults who use social media follow a brand online – which obviously doesn’t take into account paid advertisement. This means that through organic advertising alone, targeted social media users can regularly see and engage with content and promotion from your brand.

5. It’s easy

Given the billions of social media profiles on the internet, there’s no way that setting up a social media profile can be difficult.

It’s very easy, and you don’t have to use multiple platforms straight away. Introduce one at a time and monitor performance to see which platforms are the most effective for engagement, return on investment (ROI), or lead generation.

Twenti’s analytics-focused approach makes it easy to see when and where your organic and paid content is performing best and optimise your content for maximum engagement. This makes it easy to see if you are reaching the right prospective customers and if your investment is actually getting your results.

Social media marketing can also be easily tailored to your needs. The ability to create content in advance and schedule them to upload automatically allows you to work at your own pace – social media marketing can be effective without constantly interfering with a busy timetable. 

What’s more, this can be streamlined and simplified further with Twenti. Our experts can give you advice and great tools to create and manage your online presence, making it easy for even the most technophobic business owner to leverage social media. Click below to find out more.

So What Now?

This might still seem like a lot, but that’s what we are here for.

Twenti’s experts can help you create an effective and tailored social media presence and a comprehensive digital strategy, and produce content that works for your audience.

Social media takes time and thought to be its most effective, so let our experts guide you to take the next steps to grow your business. Click here to discover Twenti’s digital marketing services.