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Why Social Media Marketing is Crucial for Your Local Business 100%

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Social media marketing is a highly effective means of local digital marketing. It’s also a low-cost method of marketing that can help increase your visibility for local business SEO. How many people do you think actively use social media platforms each month? Believe it or not, your guess is probably low. Before we jump into why social media marketing is crucial for your local business, let’s explore some numbers. 

  • According to Statista, the number of Facebook users in the U.S. as of 2018 reached a whopping 204 million users. 
  • When compared to the U.S. population of around 327 million people, that means 2 in 3 U.S. citizens are actively using Facebook. 

In recent articles, we’ve clearly defined the value of the organic search. So, what are some other ways to promote your local business? Facebook can substantially help grow your local business if you do social media marketing the right way. 

So, how can your business benefit from a social media presence? Before you decide if you’re ready to use social media marketing, let’s dive deeper into why you should. 

Why Should Local Businesses Invest Time & Money in Social Media Marketing? 

If you’re already crazy busy promoting your business, you might feel like adding another marketing task is overkill. But neglecting this critical marketing component can cost you in the long run! Ignoring social media in your marketing plan can prevent you from reaching potential new customers. It can also negatively impact your retention rates. 

It’s crucial today to build relationships with your clients. This will help you increase retention rates and create a platform for lifetime value. Here are some other reasons why you should invest in social media marketing for local business:

  • People on social media are constantly asking for recommendations. From local restaurants to car repair services, thousands of online users throw up a quick post on their Facebook if they need to find local services or products. 
  • Social media platforms hone in on these conversations. For example, Facebook offers a dedicated feature that automatically generates a recommendation post when you’re looking for local businesses. Additionally, once a user appears to be asking for local tips, Facebook uses a unique algorithm to recognize recommendation requests. Based on friends’ comments, the feature also pulls up the exact locations of the businesses they mention. This automatically tags the local business, making it visible to the user who asked the question and everyone who interacts with that post. 
  • Even if you aren’t active on social media, people will talk about your business. Customers love to share their feedback, especially when it’s bad. Using social media marketing for local business allows you to interact with your customers’ feedback on social media. If it’s good feedback, that’s great for your business! You can capitalize even further on satisfied customers by sharing their praise to get more customers for your business. If customer feedback is bad, that’s okay too! You can control the conversation by showing you care about your customers and will take every effort necessary to fix your business mistakes. Additionally, you’ll gauge how well you are doing and identify ways to improve your business as required. 

Cut Your Ad Costs by Local Advertising

What most people don’t realize is that social media platforms were built for advertisers. Location is one of the many specific demographic aspects you can target with your local ads. If you laser target your ads based on people in your immediate area, their interests, and other demographic details, you can reach the highest number of potential customers at the lowest costs. 

Social media marketing also allows you to tweak your targeting and enhance your ads’ content as you monitor how well your strategy works. These beneficial features of social media marketing for local ads are the gold at the end of the rainbow. Chances are your competition is already taking advantage of the high effectiveness and low costs of social media marketing. 

Take Advantage of Word-of-Mouth Advertising

‘Social media marketing’ also builds a passionate community around your brand. There’s no better way to prompt your business than connect potential customers with like-minded people who have had satisfactory interactions with your business. 

This goes beyond encouraging conversations about your products and services. It’s about creating long-term relationships with your customers and connecting them to create a community they crave. Happy customers handle your advertising for you with word-of-mouth marketing. This also encourages higher retention rates. 

Easy Promotion of New Products & Services

Although traditional digital marketing forms are still relevant and necessary, social media can significantly boost your advertising campaign. Social advertising gives your business its own page to show the world what you offer. 

You can use this profile to share images, text, and video that inspires potential customers to engage with your brand. It’s incredible how showing your product in action can increase sales. Additionally, loyal fans can help spread the word with shareable content that passes from current customers to potential customers and beyond! 

You can also take advantage of personal posts highlighting your products from excited customers. The more you interact and spotlight customers on your page, the more attractive you look to them and other potential customers. Failing to use social media marketing in this way gives your customers a minimal experience of your brand. 

Free Mass Publicity

While this might all seem like more work on your plate, the good news is that you don’t need to spend that much time on social media. Pay attention to what customers tell you about their experience. You don’t have to bend over backward for every voice that mentions your brand, but highlighting a few customers a week can bring outstanding results. 

Remain authentic, open in communication, and create a dialogue that excites your customers. You will find yourself on the winning side of advertising. People are fed up with spoiled Instagram celebs who already have millions of followers. That’s why small brands are taking off as they gather loyal customers behind them and feature those customers on their own pages. 

Which Social Media Platforms Are Best for Your Business? 

Despite your best efforts, you can’t do everything at once. While some companies can target all social media platforms at once, it’s only possible with expensive tools and entire teams of marketing strategists. 

The best plan for the average small to mid-sized business is to focus on one or two channels to start. If you want to find the right social media platform for your business, these tips can help you understand which networks to focus on:

Type of Content

The type of content you share can vary from written content to images and videos. For example, suppose you own a dental business. It’s probably more challenging to share daily posts with multiple photos than for a restaurant owner or retail store. In this case, a dental industry would do better on Facebook, where a restaurant would benefit from Instagram. Local businesses should have a company Facebook page that offers all your business information, such as location, services, and working hours. 

Where & When Is Your Audience Most Active? 

Just because you have a page on a channel doesn’t mean you need to produce posts every day or even multiple times a day. For example, suppose your audience isn’t actively engaging with your Facebook posts. In that case, you can probably still see some results by posting a few times a month. 

On the contrary, if you’ve found that your current and potential customers are actively engaging with your competitors and other industry niche pages, it’s a clear indication that daily posts are a great resource to increase your local reach. 

Another excellent resource is Facebook groups. Closed Facebook groups give you insight on:

  • The most urgent and viral topics
  • The type of content that resonates best with your audience
  • What influences buying decisions

The same goes with other social media channels, so research your local competitors on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest. 

What Is Your Budget? 

The number of hours you have to invest in ‘social media marketing for local business‘ and your budget play a huge part in your campaign success. Today’s average social media manager spends a reasonable amount of time creating social media posts. However, they spend even more time engaging with their audience. 

The key to social media success is conversation and engagement. Likes and shares don’t help your community grow as much as comments and interactions do. That’s why it’s imperative to understand whether you have enough resources to be present and active on social media before you start your marketing campaign. 

Connecting Your Offline Customers with Your Social Media Platforms

Life isn’t easy, and neither is digital marketing! Once you’ve selected the right social media platforms, you need to face another issue. So, it should come as no surprise that your audience is split between the online and offline world. 

Essentially, this is where most brands struggle with their marketing success. You also need to engage with clients who are constantly consuming your products but not part of your social media community. Luckily, you can do this with your online activity. Offline consumers can help you grow your presence, leave positive reviews, and connect your business to a location because they connect to the area around it. 

What does that mean? 

Here are a few ideas of how you can connect offline customers with your social media platforms:

  • Ask them to check out your social media profile by giving them a card with your details. 
  • Make a photo booth at your location where customers can take a selfie. Showcase clients who participate. Remember, social media marketing is 1,000 times more effective when your customers are happy! Put them in the spotlight and create a connection to actual customers. 
  • Create a giveaway. 
  • Give people a discount if they join your online community. 
  • Invite customers to a special sale that’s targeted exclusively at your online community. 

Your business’s online presence is significant, and marketing tactics have become increasingly locally focused. Today, everyone on social media is being targeted by the things they like and the things they do. Social media marketing for local business is a practical, low-cost way to increase your visibility and reach your business’s local customers. Get connected with locals, and their news feed will do the work for more to follow. 

To learn more marketing strategies to launch your business into the future, subscribe to our blog for updates and new article notifications.


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