Wasp Barcode Technologies: The Barcode Solution People
Utilizing Social Media to Promote Your Brand
When over 75% of all online users are on social media, your small-to-medium sized business can choose to utilize media marketing tactics for your advantage or simply slip through the crack and miss reaching a large audience of potential customers. Whether your brand prides itself on high quality products, exceptional customer service or incomparable employee retention, you have a story to tell and using social media can allow you to promote it.
According to the Wasp Barcode 2016
State of Small Business Report, “improving existing customer experience and retention,” is the top strategy for revenue growth among all small businesses. In addition, social media ranks third among the top 10 marketing tools used by small businesses.
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Let’s take a look at how small businesses currently utilize the Internet:
- 32% of small business websites allow visitors to purchase goods or services
- 49% of small business websites allow visitors to reach sales or customer services
- 51% of small business websites have the company location, phone number and email addresses
- 62% of small business websites contain information about the company’s goods and service
With over 75% of online users on social media, the percentages regarding how small business utilize online resources is
too low. If the majority of potential customers are using social media, 100% of small businesses should allow visitors to purchase goods, reach sales or customer service and provide information about company location, contact information, goods and services. If you’re not already on board with implementing social media, here are some reasons why you should be:
To Better Understand Your Audience
How is a small business supposed to accurately portray their brand to an audience if they don’t actually
know this audience? One message might sound great to your marketing team, but it won’t hit home with your customers if it doesn’t relate to them. Tools such as
Facebook Insights in Hootsuite allow you to gain insight to your customers’ age, gender and even dominate language spoken. This understanding will put your marketing team on the same page as your audience, ultimately providing a better
return on investments.
To Receive Instant Feedback
According to
Forbes, traditional feedback has stepped aside with the advent of social media over the last decade. Yelp, Twitter and Glassdoor instantly hold businesses accountable for their actions. These media review sites also put a business on the spot for immediate reaction. Forbes included, “If companies are proactive in seeking instant feedback in a private environment rather than reactive when customers or employees use social media to air any grievances, the results will be more positive.”
The immediacy of social media is great for your business because it can allow you to understand what you’re doing wrong, what you’re doing right and what your customers actually desire.
To Increase Awareness With Little To No Cost
Roughly
1 in 10 small businesses do not invest in marketing at all. With social media, the majority of investing is your
time. One key reason to
invest in social media over traditional advertising is the considerably lower cost. The majority of all social media networks are free to join and allow interaction between your organization and your customers. However, if you plan to truly invest in social media and receive the benefits out of your experience, check into the pricing for a full
social media marketing campaign.
In addition,
U.S. businesses lose $83 billion each year due to defections and abandoned purchases as a direct result of poor experiences. Social media has the ability to boost your presence and awareness, generate interaction and maintain solid, long-term relationships with customers.
When your business is able to better understand your audience, receive instant feedback and increase awareness with no cost through social media, you immediately begin to see progress. In addition to the benefits above,
social media marketing provides:
- Higher brand authority
- Increased inbound traffic
- Better search engine rankings
- Richer customer experience
At the end of the day, your greatest potential loss is time spent creating profiles and posting updates, which is insignificant in comparison to the amount you will gain. Whether you prefer to emphasize marketing on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp or any other media outlet, establishing your presence is one of the key tools in succeeding in this tech-savvy 21
st century.
How is your small business utilizing social media to boost awareness?
When over 
