Marketing Mondays: Why is Social Media Marketing Important For Small Businesses?

Social media is one of those things that can seem so ubiquitous these days, that it might seem sacrilege to even question why companies don’t use social media marketing. After all, if even the smallest companies and sole traders now seem to each have their own Facebook or Twitter pages, it must be extremely effective at generating awareness, traffic and sales – right? 

That might be the case, but it’s also really instructive to have a more detailed appreciation of precisely how social media marketing helps business – in other words, why it isn’t just a fad. 

It’s More Impactful Than Traditional Forms of Advertising 

There might have been a time when a growing company like yours would almost automatically turn to more traditional marketing forms, such as TV or radio, over something as relatively ‘new’ and novel as web-based marketing. 

Things have changed a lot on that score over just a few years, though. However, it’s not just the raw statistics that point to social media marketing now being more relevant than traditional advertising such as TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. That’s because it’s also a considerably cheaper way to promote your business than the likes of TV and radio while enabling you to reach a much wider and more targeted audience. 

It Helps To Boost Brand Awareness 

Another great answer to the question, “why is social media marketing important for small businesses?” is the ease with which it can be used to spread the word about your brand. 

Spending just a few minutes to set up a Facebook or Twitter, and without needing any cash outlay to do so, you can soon be putting your colours, logo, values and messaging in front of more eyeballs. And with some 45 million social media users in the UK alone – roughly 67% of the population – that’s an awful lot of eyeballs. It should hardly be a great surprise, then, that over 91% of marketers who dedicated just a few hours a week to social media marketing claimed that their efforts greatly increased their brand visibility and heightened user experience. 

It Facilitates Customer Engagement 

One other fundamental feature that social media marketing offers you over the likes of TV and radio advertising, is the opportunity to more deeply interact with prospective and current customers alike. 

Whereas a poorly targeted TV or radio advertisement might simply ‘wash over’ the intended viewer or listener, even a relatively casual social media campaign enables you to directly and easily respond to customer queries. Thereby creating a genuine two-way conversation, this can subsequently help to convert more casual browsers into full, paying customers. 

It Helps To Increase Website Traffic 

Maintaining an active social media presence for your brand also creates an indispensable connection between your business’s more conversational, chatty, ‘everyday’ communications and what may be the relative formality of your main website. 

Simply by incorporating relevant and useful links to various parts of your main site in your tweets, Instagram posts and Facebook updates, you can encourage heightened inbound traffic to your site, from people who are actually likely to be interested in and purchase from you. 

In an era in which the average consumer now looks online first for services, the question “why is social media marketing important for small businesses?” is an easy one to answer. Not having a social media presence or offering a fast and easy means by which customers can communicate with you runs the risk of losing these customers to your competitors. 

Simply call our team now on 01788 288 800, to get chatting about how we can assist you in getting the very best out of your brand’s social media marketing in the months and years ahead.