Small businesses are constantly trying to come up with new ways to gain exposure, increase their sales, and compete with larger businesses. One of the ways that small business owners can achieve the aforesaid things is by having a robust presence on social media. While some small business owners may be reluctant to embrace this idea, statistics prove that most consumers are on social media nowadays, which makes it a great platform to increase brand awareness, gain new customers, increase sales, and compete with larger businesses.
It is estimated that there are more than 4.5 billion active social media users on various platforms, including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Omegle, Instagram, and Snapchat. In the upcoming years, this number is expected to increase to nearly six billion. Here are some reasons why social media presence is crucial for small businesses and how it can help them in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Increased Visibility
One of the primary benefits of having a strong presence on social media is increased visibility. Social media platforms have billions of active users, and by establishing a presence on top platforms, small businesses can improve their visibility and tap into a vast audience from around the world that they might not otherwise have reached through traditional marketing channels.
Users can easily find businesses on social media by searching for specific keywords, and hashtags, or browsing through their social feeds. Moreover, there are numerous success stories of businesses gaining popularity and worldwide recognition through social media, such as that of Salt Bae, a small Turkish steakhouse that became famous worldwide due to a viral video of the restaurant’s chef, Nusret Gökçe, sprinkling salt on a steak.
Access to Analytics and Insights
Social media platforms also provide businesses with valuable insights into their audience demographics and behaviors, which can help them refine their marketing strategies and improve their product offerings. Various social media platforms provide analytics tools to help businesses understand who is engaging with their content, when they are most active, and what types of content they prefer. This can help businesses refine their content-posting strategy to maximize engagement with their target audience.
Competing with Larger Businesses
Social media platforms provide a competitive advantage to small businesses if they are active on them. Small businesses usually don’t have the resources to keep up with the expensive marketing strategies of huge businesses and organizations, but if they are active on social media and have built a robust presence for themselves, they can stay ahead of their competition and also be competitive with big brands.
Simply by having active social media profiles across various platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Bazoocam, small businesses can increase their visibility, brand awareness, customer engagement, and competitive advantage. To build a strong presence on social media, you just need to have the right social media strategy. Once you have a strong enough social media presence, you can compete with even those brands that spend thousands of dollars every month on social media marketing.
A Valuable Communication Avenue
Having multiple methods for communicating is always a good choice for businesses, and social media aids businesses in that. Not only can businesses add their address, phone numbers, and email to their social media profiles, but customers can also directly get in touch with the business if they want to ask about something.
This allows for direct engagement with customers and enables businesses to communicate with them in real time, answering questions, addressing concerns, and providing support.
Drive Traffic and Increase Sales
A social media presence is also necessary because it can help small businesses drive traffic to their websites and increase sales and conversions. Having an engaged audience on social media can help small businesses direct users to their website through a post on their feed or story. This can lead to increased website traffic and, ultimately, increased sales and conversions.