When you think about social media, what comes to your mind first? Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest? LinkedIn? Perhaps even Google+?
Ok, they are the most frequently used ones but there are many more.
But…
Why to use social media
for your online business?
People like doing business with someone they know, like and trust.
Your presence on social media platforms can help easily build up
authority and/or branding. You and/or your company will get
noticed on the Internet much faster than by using a simple
website only. That gives you the opportunity to reach out to
a bigger audience – and marketing to them can be very profitable.
Also, for many people testimonials are aka “social proof” for
seriousness and expertise, they can help gain trust. By joining
social networks and putting some serious work in your social
presence, you can easily get great testimonials and climb up
in the range of experts. Notice that I’m not talking about how
reliable these testimonials are nor about how easily you can
modify them…
Oh yes, and that reminds me of the amount of likes and shares.
There are many reasons not to rely too much on them, other
criteria are much more important (hint: engagement).
We’ve all learned already that a huge list of friends or followers
does not necessarily mean a good business…
Not sure about what other social media networks will be doing,
but Facebook is moving more and more to paid advertising.
That means you can get lots of likes by setting up well-targeted ads.
If you follow the latest updates you’ll see that you can reach way less of your followers than you could a few months before…
According to Facebook, text updates on fanpages and business
pages will be devaluated. They massively support now enhanced
calls to action in the newsfeed ads. Also, sponsored stories will
go away by April this year.
What does all that mean for you and for all of us using social media? Simply put, more work. We’ll have to post more often at different times of the day to reach our entire audience. And we’ll need to
invest even more work and time in our updates to engage our audience.
You may say now that’s all okay, but… Does it make sense to use social media for my small business online? And how to get everything done when the day has 24 hours only?!
Absolutely, it does make sense to use social media for your online business.
To me, time is the biggest issue when it comes to using social media for small online businesses. Unless they outsource the work, they cannot keep up with all the changes in the “social arena”. But even outsourcing can become a serious issue: it can be difficult to find the right people to do the job (hint: Fiverr may or may not be the right choice), and in plus, outsourcing costs money. And usually, small online businesses are built on a shoestring budget…
To wrap it up, let me ask you –
and I’d be really happy to hear from you:
- do you use social media for your online business, and if so,
- how much time per day do you spend on your primary
social network?
HIMARO'S MASTERMIND 