What is Social Media Marketing and Why is it Important for Your Small Business?

New to social media marketing? You might have experience using Facebook to keep in touch with friends or scrolling through Instagram for funny videos, but social media for business is a different story altogether. It takes strategy, research, planning, and the right tools. But it’s all worth it for the boost it can give to your business.

Read on to find out more about social media marketing and why it’s an essential component of your small business marketing.

What is social media marketing?

As you can probably guess, social media marketing refers to any marketing activities carried out on a social media platform. But the practice is incredibly varied depending on the platform you’re using, the audience you’re targeting, your goals, your budget, and more. Here are some of the most popular platforms for social media marketing:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Snapchat

Social media can be used to achieve various things for your business, and your goals will have a big impact on your strategy. For example, a brand-new business might use social media marketing to raise awareness of their new brand. A more established business might use it to drive more visitors to their website in order to convert them. Businesses can also use social media as an effective customer service platform.

What are the benefits of social media marketing?

Next, let’s look at the importance of social media marketing. In this day and age, it is essential for a business to have an online presence. It shows that you are active as a business and it allows people to find out more about your brand and products. This goes just as much for small businesses as it does for larger corporations.

Plus, social media marketing can offer great results for your small business. Here are some of the benefits of social media marketing.

It’s a low-cost marketing technique

Social media marketing is a great technique for new businesses because you can do it completely for free. It costs nothing other than time to create a profile and start sharing content on these platforms. So, don’t worry if your marketing budget is non-existent to start off with.

You can reach a wide audience

There are almost 3.5 billion active users on social media in 2019 across the various channels. That’s a massive audience that could potentially see your content and be exposed to your brand if you take part in social media marketing. More brand exposure is always a good thing in the early stages of running a business.

And target smaller niches

But you’re not going to be actively selling to 3.5 billion people. A good marketing strategy involves targeting smaller niches that will be interested in what you sell. This helps you focus your time and budget on the people that will actually buy from you. Look for users who follow brands that are similar to yours or who post about interests relevant to your industry, for example. Most platforms also make it really easy for you to target a specific audience through social media advertising.

Gain traffic and leads

If you’ve just invested in a new website for your business, then you might find that it’s pretty hard to get people to land on your website. You can use social media to drive more visitors to your website. Share links to blogs you’ve posted or other pages on your website. Each click-through is a visitor to your site, visitors that might even convert into customers.

Whatever your business goals are, social media marketing can help you achieve them. If you need help getting started with social media marketing for your business, here are some more tips on how to use social media for your small business.

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