How Social Media Helps Businesses
Social media is a great tool; it can help you market your business and connect with your customers. Let's look at the different options available and the pros and cons of using social media for your business.
Firstly, what is social media? It is online communication that allows you to interact with your customers and share information in real-time. This can help you reach your customers better, create online networks, sell and promote your products and services. However, it can be easy to get carried away when using social media for your business due to the pros and cons.
Benefits of social media
It can help you engage with your customers and find out what people are saying about your business. It is also great for advertising, promotional giveaways, and mobile applications.
Social media can help your business to:
attract customers, get customer feedback and build customer loyalty
increase your market reach, including international markets
reduce marketing costs
increase revenue by building customer networks and advertising
develop your brand
exchange ideas to improve the way you do business
recruit skilled staff, for example, through job networking sites like LinkedIn
increase traffic to your website and improve its search engine ranking
Disadvantages of social media
Social media is not suitable for every business. If you are unprepared and launch your social media presence without planning, you could waste valuable time and money.
You should be aware that:
if you don't have a marketing or social media strategy, the benefits can be reduced
social media is immediate and needs daily monitoring
if you don't actively manage your social media presence, you may not see any real benefits
you may get unwanted or inappropriate behaviour on your site
online exposure can attract risks such as negative feedback, information leaks or hacking
false or misleading claims made on your social media (by your business or a customer) can be subject to consumer law.
Whatever the risks, having a social media strategy and carefully preparing your policy and procedures can help you manage them.
Remember that not all social media platforms will be right for your business. Consider saving time and effort by using social media platforms that your customers use.