How Social Media Affects Small Businesses

Did you know that there are approximately 33 million small businesses in America? About 45% of workers in the United States are employed by these smaller but very capable companies. Larger businesses employ numerous expensive marketing strategies to increase their visibility, customer base, and revenue, so how are small businesses supposed to keep up?

Enter social media marketing, a digital marketing strategy that has the potential to bring buyers to small businesses in droves. Small businesses can use social media to reach a significantly higher number of potential customers than just word of mouth or physical location.

It Increases Brand Awareness

If your small business isn’t leveraging social media, your ability to introduce yourself to potential customers decreases significantly. However, by incorporating various forms of social media marketing, such as content marketing, influencer marketing, and paid advertising, you can showcase your brand to individuals within your target market locally and nationally.

So, how exactly does social media enhance brand awareness? It provides a popular platform to integrate multiple marketing strategies, including:

Sharing content that addresses your customers’ pain points
Communicating your unique selling points
Encouraging users to share your content with others

It Drives Traffic to Your Website

Many small businesses use websites as a platform to showcase—and sell—their products or services. But without taking advantage of social media, they’re missing a huge opportunity to bring more traffic (potential customers) to their website.

After a colleague suggests creating a business account on your target audience’s preferred social media platform, you begin to notice a rise in the number of people visiting your site.

If you incorporate customer testimonials, include links to your website in your social media posts, and actively engage with your audience, website traffic continues to grow. This increase ultimately leads to a boost in sales and revenue for your company, proving that social media’s ability to increase traffic also translates to tangible success for your business.

It Promotes Content

Social media provides an excellent opportunity to promote many types of content, including blog posts, videos, infographics, and podcasts.

While you might attract some organic clicks via search engines, consider the potential for increased clicks if you promote on one or more social media accounts. As your following increases, you’ll be creating a larger platform to showcase your content, simultaneously highlighting your industry expertise. It’s a win-win for your marketing strategy and your business.

It Helps You Stay Ahead of Competitors

Once you jump on the social media marketing bandwagon, you’ll realize that you’re not the only expert out there. While you may have found a specific niche of customers to target your efforts towards, other small businesses selling similar products or offering similar services have also identified their own target audience and are implementing their own marketing strategies to attract potential customers to their content and website.

Social media provides valuable insights into your competitors’ activities and keeps you updated on current industry trends. By monitoring your competitors’ marketing strategies, you can identify what’s working for them and what isn’t, enabling you to adapt and refine your own marketing approaches accordingly.