It is possible to grow your small business using social media. Some of the specific ways in which you can promote your small business’ growth using social media include by:
1. Increasing your business’ website traffic
This is just a matter of consistently creating social media posts, in which you include conspicuous links to your small business’ website. Inevitably, some of the people who encounter those posts will be tempted to click on the links in them [especially if the links are conspicuous]. And upon clicking on those links, they will be taken straight to your business’ website. Once they get to your business’ website, they will get to know about the products or services you are selling. And if the content in your business’ website is persuasive enough, they may be inclined to consider buying the products or services you are selling. Just think about the potential of this strategy. Even if you only manage to get 50 or 100 people to visit your business’ website in this manner, that could still potentially translate into a great deal of business in the long run. You just need to ensure that the content in your business’ website is persuasive and then also ensure that the social media posts with links to the website are properly done. Then you need to be consistent in making the social media posts and within a few months, you will start seeing results, in terms of sales originating from the social media posts. Just don’t go overboard with this (and other related strategies), lest you be accused of spamming.
2. Getting more people to know about your business
One of the biggest challenges you will face when it comes to marketing your small business is that of [simply] getting a huge enough number of people to know about the enterprise. Social media can come in handy here. It is just a matter of making social media posts mentioning your business’ name and the types of products or services it deals in. Over time, the people who keep on encountering these social media posts will come to view your business as the first port they should call on whenever they want to buy the products or services you are selling. And this is likely to translate into a great deal of business in the long run.
3. Getting more people to consider buying from you
The idea here is to make social media posts with persuasive messaging on why the readers/viewers should buy the product or service you are selling. So you come up with social media posts containing your products’ or services’ strongest selling points. Chances are that many of the people who will come across these social media posts will ignore them — as they won’t be looking to buy the product or service you are selling at that particular point in time. But the few individuals who happen to be seeking to buy the products or services you are selling who come across the social media posts are likely to be drawn to them. And if the arguments in them are persuasive enough, they will end up placing orders for the products or services you are selling. All you need to do is ensure that you prominently display your contact details within the social media posts. This way, the people who are persuaded to buy from you can place their orders with ease.
4. Bonding with your customers
This is where, for instance, you can create a Facebook page for your small business, and invite your customers to consider joining it. It is similarly where you can create a Twitter and/or Instagram page for your business and invite your customers to consider becoming ‘followers’ in it. You can even create a YouTube channel around your small business, and invite your customers to consider subscribing to it. Once they become members/followers/subscribers to your social media accounts, it would mean that they would be regularly exposed to messaging from the business. In other words, you would get a chance to bond with the customers and to create some sort of personal relationship with them. This is important because later on, when they have to make buying decisions, they are more likely to buy from your business [with which they have a personal relationship] as opposed to a competitor who has made no effort to bond with them.
5. Understanding your customers’ feelings
Closely related to the aspect of bonding with your customers is that of getting to understand their feelings. Yous see, the way most social media platforms operate is such that the members/followers/subscribers are allowed to make comments on the stuff that is posted there. You just need to make posts related to your business then watch the comments that are made to those posts, to understand what your customers feel about the various aspects of your business. You can go further and make an effort to check through posts about your products or services made elsewhere in social media (not necessarily in your business�� social media platforms). So you check the posts there as well as the comments below them. Through those, you can get to understand what people truly feel about your business and the products or services you are selling.
6. Improving the value/profile of your brand
This is just a matter of consistently making social media posts in which you prominently mention your business’ brands name(s). The people who keep on encountering the social media posts with the said brand name(s) are likely to start developing attachments to the brand(s). At least this will happen at the subconscious level. And it is inevitable – we always start falling in love with what we are frequently exposed to. It is, for instance, the way we come to love the songs that enjoy a great deal of airplay in the media, even if they happen not to be the best songs. But just because we keep on hearing them in the radio so frequently, we now start believing that they are actually the best (even if there are in fact other better songs out there, only that they are not enjoying as much airplay). You can use a similar strategy, to grow your brand(s): by way of making frequent social media posts featuring your brand name(s). In other words, your business brand’s profile is likely to grow in the eyes of the people who are exposed to the social media posts promoting it. Then when such people happen to be seeking to buy the products or services you are selling, they will be inclined to buy those brands to which they have been exposed, as opposed to buying other brands that are completely alien to them. The most important thing is for you to be consistent in your brand building efforts through social media. Don’t expect instant results. But if you are consistent, you are likely to start seeing your business’ performance improving — on account of the brand building efforts undertaken through social media.