It's a common misconception that the impact of social media activity on your business revenue isn't quantifiable. Some might say it’s just one big expensive gamble – you never know what will work and what won’t, therefore making a return on your investment is virtually impossible. This is WRONG.
The part about experimenting is true – social is still a relatively new medium and the strategy for each network may change as major updates are made to each platform, but that is what makes it all the more fun.
Social has come a long way from being a place where friends share entertaining pictures and music videos. It’s a place of opportunity allowing you to create meaningful connections, including connecting the right product or service to the right person, across the globe.
Social media is growing up
Unlike traditional marketing channels (TV and the newspapers), social media is unique in the way that reaches customers personally. It’s a two-way street where customers participate and can potentially promote your content for you (if they like it).
We see many brands, both big and small, do it so well - their pages are branded consistently, they engage with their audience and know how to distribute their offers based on the interests and habits of their followers. Their success depends on large budgets and manpower, but even more so on the way that they align social media to support their business objectives.
It’s important to stay sane in the oversaturated online world and not jump onto every single network, only to post duplicate content across all of them. Instead, you need to focus on networks that align with your target audience, business objectives, brand message and its format.
For example, if you are a service based B2B company, you will most likely use LinkedIn for lead generation and Twitter would be great for timely updates. If you are a B2C jewellery designer, you might want to focus on more visual platforms such as Instagram or Facebook.
Path to greatness with limited resources
Since most customers (especially younger demographics), prefer to research online before making a purchase, social media is a great tool to guide your customer in the right direction, build your brand image and position yourself as an expert in the field by sharing your knowledge. It can also be used for quickly resolving customer queries and targeting other businesses for collaboration.
As a small business owner, you have three options:
- Leave your social media strategy until the magical moment when you have dedicated resources
- Hire an inexpensive agency which could potentially not deliver your message
- Focus on what you do best and invest in the right social media management tool
For us, this is a no brainer and we would of course, suggest the latter. Sure, coming up with a strategy, creating a content strategy and responding to customer queries might seem overwhelming at first. But just as with any task, it can become much simpler when we have the right tools at our disposal.
Once you set measurable goals, it is possible to track them and link the impact of your social media on your overall business objectives. Our social media management tool Sendible, can help you with scheduling, reporting and monitoring both your customers and your competitors.
Social media management software for agencies and businesses
If you don’t have a tool to help you schedule social media posts to multiple social media networks just yet, you can give Sendible a try, completely free for 30 days.
