Does social media marketing work?
And how can it help me grow my business?
[source: Convert With Content] These are critical questions to ask and you’re asking because knowing the answer could be the difference between your business growing or your business dying. So let’s dive in and get you an answer!
In case you don’t like reading much, here’s the short answer: YES.
Oh, still reading? Ok, great! Now we can go much deeper and explore our question “Does Social Media Marketing Work?” and dig specifically into why it works and what you need to be doing to make it work for you.
Why Social Media Marketing Works For Small Business
The reason social media works for small businesses has a lot to do with the consumer environment in which we live today. Remember: as a business owner and entrepreneur, your sole goal is to grow your business by acquiring leads and turning those leads into customers who will buy from you. Naturally, then, you should go where your customers are to find them, right? Right!
It always amazes me how many business owners refuse to participate in social marketing because they themselves aren’t active on social media. This is really a moot point. We’re not talking about politics here, we’re talking about getting your business in front of customers who will buy from you! It shouldn’t matter WHERE they are or HOW you go about reaching them, so long as it delivers a return on investment and helps you grow your business.
Today, much of what fuels consumer buying decisions and behaviors is happening on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and even LinkedIn. These are the modern forms of media that are shaping your customers’ lives and playing a major role not just in how they spend their daily time, but in how they make purchasing decisions and how they get influenced. One of your top objectives as a business is to play a part in that influencing process.
Here’s the golden nugget: Social media networks allow YOU and your business to become a direct influencer. This is an unprecedented part of human culture and mass media. So why not take advantage?
The process of building a powerful, effective social marketing campaign is beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll give you some key pointers to help you along:
- Figure Out Which Networks Your Customers Use Most
- Create A Presence On Those Networks & Be Active
- Leverage Your Social Presence To Create Trust & Authority
Being effective with social media marketing doesn’t mean you have to spend hours and hours of your day on Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and all the rest. Definitely not! For most small businesses, getting social marketing to *work* means investing just the right amount of time or employee resources to generate good results.