The Benefits of Social Media Marketing for the Small Businesses

Social Media Marketing is the most recent phenomenon in the field of marketing. Thousands of small businesses are using this new way of marketing to reach their targeted audiences. Just consider the current generation. Can they imagine a single day without the social networks? They are technology oriented; they engage themselves in the internet for the entertainment; they collect information from there; almost everything they share with their friends, families, and acquaintances. So the social networking sites are vast sources of audiences. Some of them may become your potential customers if you can properly expose your products or services to them. Keeping them in mind, social media marketing is an obvious way of marketing your products or services. Now, let us find out what you can get from social media marketing. 

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others social media sites have been engaging billions of people in a common platform. They are playing a vital role in our day to day life. Billions of people are the members of those sites. They make comments on others’ postings; they regularly update the status; they download and upload images; do such other things. In that way, they interchange their views; interact with others. These interactions have enormous influences on the decisions they take. Not only that, people can change their friends’ and followers’ consumption pattern. As a businessman, this is the opportunity you can utilize. Set up a profile on those social media sites; introduce yourself with them; learn how they interact with their friends and followers; try to find out what their consumption behaviors are; identify what are the problems they face and the probable solutions to them; develop or modify your product or service accordingly. 

The traditional forms of marketing are so much more costly than you imagine. Take an example of a Television commercial. That is, if you want to advertise your products or services through TV media, it will cost you a large amount. The tasks associated with advertising through television channels are preparing a plan, estimating the budget, contacting the TV commercial making agency, selecting the models, making the TV commercial, and finally broadcasting the commercial on the selected television channels.  In contrast, if you select social media marketing to expose your products or services to the targeted audiences, you will have to pay out a very little amount. Just hire one, two or three efficient persons who will manage the entire process. 

Another question regarding the traditional forms of marketing is: “Can you measure the media coverage your product or service is getting when you are using the traditional forms of marketing?” “No” is your answer; right? In contrast, if you utilize the social media marketing, you can measure it. You easily can measure the response your friends make on the Facebook when you post something new. Similarly, you also can know how your followers interact with you on the Twitter. 

The customer relationship management (CRM) is one the successful ways of retaining the current customers. As a marketer, if you use the social media marketing, it is very easy for you to implement the CRM. Now you can find out who the loyal customers are; what they prefer; what their consumption behaviors are; in what way they respond to any innovation; and how they like to get the solutions to their problems. Now, you should compare these two forms of marketing. 

Information technology is evolving over time. If you cannot make use of them in your way, you might not succeed in your business. Make a proper SMM plan; execute it, and reap out the big success for your business.