Are you social media savvy? To find how savvy you are, we’ve put together a little quiz for you here. Back to our thoughts: Research has shown that there is rapid growth in e-commerce, with sales increasing year-on-year. In addition, the key contributor to this boom is attributed to smartphones. Due to the meteoric rise of e-commerce, it’s important as a business, big or small, to be visible in this space through various online marketing techniques. Consumers searching for businesses online has become the new norm. What role then does social media play in all of this? For starters, e-commerce has become more social with social media marketing being a driver to increase sales. So, it stands to reason, wouldn’t the use of social media for small businesses help you drive more sales?

After all, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram do have commerce capabilities. Indeed, you can make social media work for your small business without breaking the bank. We’ll share a few ways how social media can help your small business.

Connect with Professionals

When it comes to social media, it’s important to understand that relationships are everything! Regardless of your platform, whether it be Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, it’s imperative to devote some time to interact with like-minded professionals regularly. Start by allocating a few minutes every day to respond to your followers and connect with like-minded individuals. Alternatively, you could outsource a community manager to help you with this. It may seem daunting, but it’s important to connect with your online community. If you don’t have the time, we can offer you flexible digital marketing packages to connect with your community and grow your business.

Build a Credible Reputation on Social

Building a credible reputation on social media can take a while. Time and continuous investment is what’s propelled the world’s biggest brands to where they are. Using social media you can build a credible reputation for your small business. Furthermore, for small businesses starting out, you don’t need hordes of fans to work with. It’s more important to take the opportunity to build a loyal following. Here are some tips for your social pages:

• Keep the brand image and marketing assets consistent across all platforms
• Use authentic and engaging content to connect with your audience
• Use best practices as a guideline for your posting times
• Post content consistently
• Engage with your audience

If you’re struggling to find content assets for your business, you could pay an agency to design assets and create content for you. Alternatively, there are many free tools to help you design your own assets, using free stock images as your template. When designing your assets, always ensure that they are authentic and professional. Here’s another blog to help you explore ideas on how to use your social media.

Customers Can Find Your Business on Social

Social media for small businesses can be used to find new customers. However, note that there are many ways to achieve your objectives – remember that you should explore all of your options to see what is suitable for your brand. Growing your community and customer base by increasing your engagement such as posting valuable content and hashtagging are good places to start.  In addition, using the e-commerce capabilities that social media affords you is another good way to find new customers and increase sales. Promoting your products and services should be top of mind.

Vary Your Marketing Efforts

Your offline marketing efforts are diverse, so, why shouldn’t your online marketing efforts be diverse too? Your approach should be to use to use the right mix of techniques to promote your brand. In most cases, online marketing is less costly than offline marketing. You should approach your marketing by using:

• Social Media
• Paid Advertising
• Digital PR
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Blogs
• Website Development and Management

These are just some methods to help boost your marketing. These marketing efforts expand your online presence and can help increase your sales.

Remember, your marketing efforts play a big role in ensuring the success of your business. If nobody sees or hears about your business, the chances of you increasing your sales are minimal. Understand that there’s no need to break the bank if you have a sound strategy and use a few innovative tools to help you drive returns on your investment.

If you feel like you don’t have the time, working with an experienced social media agency like ours that has the expertise, tools, skills and resources to manage your social media accounts would be a great option for you. When deciding to work with an agency, it’s imperative to understand what you need in a package and whether or not that package will meet your needs. At PrimePixels, we have many packages on offer which can be customised to meet your needs.

So, stop procrastinating and contact us today for further information.