5 tips for small business owners on how to use social media marketing to grow and expand

Social media marketing is a great platform to use when you want to build and maintain a strong presence in your industry. Social networks can easily attract thousands of unique visitors to sites in minutes. Large companies have implemented and adapted social platforms in their advertising and marketing campaigns. The question now is: how can small businesses take advantage of these platforms?

Benefits of social networks
• Build community and interaction.
• Promotes brand loyalty
• Can create exposure (often virally)
• Allows you to hear

Disadvantages of social networks
• Requires a lot of time to build and maintain
• Growth is usually slow in many situations
• Difficulty evaluating return on investment (ROI)

For a small business to take advantage of any social marketing campaign, they must understand that this requires an investment of time and that the return on investment or ROI will not happen instantly. Therefore, it is important to focus on the essential segments to send the message.

Here are some tips for small business owners on how to use social media marketing to grow and expand your business:

1 – Communications: Small businesses can start communicating with their customers by joining conversations on social media. When your social media marketing efforts are targeted to local areas, you can be sure that customers will walk into the store and buy your product. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and others will make it easier for small businesses and their customers to share media about services and products.

2 – Effective strategies: Customers should be encouraged to submit feedback on your services and products. Integrate your website with your blogs, Facebook, Twitter and various other social networking sites to allow your customers to express their opinion and talk to each other about your services.

3 – Multimedia: Take advantage of websites like Flicker and YouTube, which have exploded in recent years. Everyone loves to share media content with friends. When you provide worthwhile content, people will also share, circulate, and comment on it. Short videos will also go a long way for businesses as they are a great way to get a steady stream of subscribers as well as occasional new customers.

4 – Reviews and opinions: Google, Yelp and Zagat allow customers to review their services and products. You need to participate in local discussions about your business. Encourage your customers to give reviews and get a discount or incentive. For this, you can choose new products or less popular products and this will help boost sales.

5 – Local Business Listings: Claim your business listing locally on Google, Yahoo and Bing. This will increase your ranking and visibility on the internet.

In summary
When a business is prepared to spend some time and effort to become an active member of their local community through social media marketing, this will significantly help expand the business. When investments are made to develop the website as a primary hub for communication, digital media, and social media efforts, then the sky will be the limit.