When competing for the attention of today’s customers, having a strong social media presence is a necessity.
Not only will social media marketing for small business give you a chance to interact on a more personal level with your target audience, but it also creates tremendous awareness for your brand.
Most businesses today have some kind of social media presence, although not everyone approaches social media the right way.
In some cases, the way you are marketing your small business on social media can actually do more harm than good. Here are some ways that a business could actually suffer from poor social media marketing use:
1. Low engagement levels with audience due to lack of activity online
Just creating a Facebook account, Twitter account, Instagram account, etc. does not mean you have established a social media presence for your business.
Simply launching your brands on these social networking sites, is much different than staying active and managing your social media accounts daily.
If you want your small business to be successful on social media, you need to commit to regularly sharing high quality, relevant content and finding ways to keep your audience engaged with your content.
2. Not keeping up with comments your business recieves indicates that you do not care about your audience.
Recent studies indicated that 80 percent of consumers expect companies respond to their comments and/or complaints on social media within 24 hours.
So, what happens if your audience’s comments are not responded to within a reasonable amount of time?
Nearly 50 percent of people stated that they would no longer do business with a company that does not respond to comments and complaints they receive.
Not responding to online comments in a timely fashion (or ignoring them altogether) is one of the fastest ways to lose business today.
Luckily, there are a number of social media monitoring tools like Zoho and Hootsuite that proactively scan comments in real time and notify businesses of any online mentions.
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Take advantage of these tools so that you can promptly respond to comments and show your audience that you genuinely care about them and what they have to say.
Social media is like your brand’s online voice.
As a small business, we know that you’ve worked hard to build a reputable brand that people trust.
Your social media posts should be a good representation of your brand’s message.
If your social media posts don’t convey the same messages that you’ve communicated elsewhere, you will most certainly lose credibility and trust with your audience.
All of the content that you post on social media should be relevant to your brand and keep the audience engaged.
One of the most common mistakes with social media marketing for small businesses is not updating social media profiles. As critical aspects of business operations change, such as new websites, new locations, new phone number, etc., your business’s social media accounts need to be updated.
If this information is outdated, your social media marketing efforts will not be effective in helping to convert customers because they won’t be able to take the next steps with your business.
Overall, social media marketing for small business is a lot more than just creating your account. If you make any of the four mistakes discussed above, you are putting your business’s reputation at risk.
If you don’t have the time, energy, or resources to put into a successful social media marketing for small business strategy, you may want to try partnering with a social media marketing firm.
This content was originally published here.