If you own a small business, you would naturally want to increase exposure of your business by marketing it. The usual ways of marketing were using brochures, posters, calls, newsletters, advertising or using commercials. However, with the advent of the internet, the marketing rules have changed. Even more so with the appearance of social media sites.
Social media is a new means for people to communicate. Each person or subscriber has either a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or blog account where they regularly log in. It has become an increasingly common way for people from all social classes, to communicate with each other. Social networking usage has increased over the past three years. In fact, in the US alone more than 40 percent of the adults subscribe to at least one websites. Websites are user-centric, so if you can target a specific group of people who use social media sites regularly, you can tap into what is potentially an unlimited market.
Studies have been done already on the performance of small businesses before and after they used websites. The results are really positive. In fact, one small business owner was able to make $50 million dollars after marketing his products over websites. This is a huge leap from the original $4 million in revenue before he used websites. Statistics have shown the it is the small businesses that are having positive results from the use of social networking sites compared to mid-sized businesses and large corporations.
In 2011, in the US, 50 percent of small business owners are already using social networking outfits like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to increase exposure for their businesses. In fact, a significant number of those using social networking outfits have improved their sales and have generated new sale leads as well. There are several groups of small business owners who have created new business partnerships all because of social media site marketing.
There are other benefits from using social media marketing like reduced over-all cost for marketing. The cost of marketing using websites is much lower compared to traditional means of marketing one’s business or products. It also takes an average of only 6 hours per week for the small business owners to focus on social networking marketing, which means that it is not that time extensive.
There is just one caveat for small business owners though. The average boom in business and increase in exposure occur an average of 3 years. What this means is that small business owners must be patient. They also need to be diligent enough to post updates on a regular basis. Since websites are user-centric, a business owner must make sure that they are building a relationship with their customers as repeat business is expected should their customers be satisfied with their service.