Partner Article

Why small businesses should have social media

With just over one billion people now using the likes of Facebook, the outreach that one person can reach, using an entirely free service is becoming almost boundless.

In fact, there are more than 7 billion devices now connected to the social media world and the outreach and impact of this platform is becoming ever more realised as conventional marketing begins to falter in its wake:

• 44% of direct mail is not opened
• 86% of people skip television advertisements
• 90% of emails are never opened
• 99.5% of these emails do not produce a single click

In a world where a simple picture can be uploaded to a Facebook page, accompanied by the words, ‘click if you like’, followed by several hundred responses; one has to wonder why some of these old internet marketing tactics are still in place today.

Even major companies such as British Airways heavily utilise social marketing on platforms such as Twitter on Facebook where the airline enjoys a following of 200k.

In fact, 79 of the FSTE 100 companies now use and market themselves through the power of social media.

But these are major companies with hundreds of thousands of pounds to play with, so what is there for small businesses in the UK?

Social media management companies are out there and earn a living from getting the voices of small companies out there into the large and often intimidating social media world.

You can also get help from business consultants such as Phoenix Specialist Sales Agents, though by utilising a social media management company can ensure that your social media outlets are professionally planned, implemented and monitored to make sure that your message or product gets to the right people - your customers.

Small companies can actually save money

Though this statement may seem a little outlandish but it is true; the right social media agency will save your company money.

What most businesses don’t realise when they start, but fully (and perhaps successfully) implementing a social media stratagem is a full time job and can take days to get it right.

Although hiring an experienced social media wizard will most probably work out for the better, it is far cheaper to hire a company (perhaps on a rolling contract) to market within your social media.

Not only that, but with the hiring of a media company, you shall have at your disposal a whole team of individuals rather than the mind of one.

But what are the specific advantages of using social media?

Measurability

One of the great many advantages of social media is that the stats are there for you whenever you need them, so you can analyse every single post, image and word that your strategy has produced to see how this has affected your outreach.

Impression

If your accounts are managed properly, by the right people, your company’s image can be taken to heights that you would have never thought possible.

On the other hand however, if your social media accounts are misused, this can put potential customers off of your business. In fact, a recent study found that 75% of business owners had been put off another business due to poor social media management.

Leads

If used correctly social media can develop many leads for your business.

One case story was that of Hallowfields Hotel in Oxfordshire which had been running since 1993.

The hotel performed well throughout the years leading up to the financial crises. Unfortunately, once this occurred the business started to slow and the hotel could no longer afford to market through conventional means.

Hotel owner, Antony Lloyd said:

“We had to cut marketing costs and win new business, and joining Twitter has enabled us to do both,” Lloyd says. “I’d never used it before and it took me several months to see any results, but within 18 months I had 1,000 followers and bookings were up, generating £150,000 of new business.”

With the reach of social media ever expanding, who knows where this will lead the world of marketing within the next few short years; what we can decipher however, is that it is sure to make both big and potentially positive differences to small businesses throughout the United Kingdom.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonny Marshall .