How To Use Social Media To Benefit Your Business

Social media allows businesses to interact directly with their customers and prospects. It is an affordable, flexible marketing tool. Even though 63 percent of small businesses use social media to grow their online brand, social media strategies don’t work for all. Small businesses need to determine their social media goals, and then create a strategy that addresses their specific needs and resources.

Businesses can use social media to promote their brands to a broad audience without investing a lot of money. However, social media usage varies between industries and businesses.

According to our latest survey, 38% of small business owners do not use social media for their promotion.

This report can be used by businesses to find out about the state and future of social media in 2019, as well as help them develop their social media marketing strategies.

Our findings

38 percent of small businesses don’t have social network accounts, despite having the opportunity to market their products.

56 percent of small businesses rely on employees to manage social media accounts. 37% use software that allows them to manage social media, but it has its limitations.

Small businesses considered engagement (24%), as well as conversions (24%), to be the most important metrics.

Nearly 30% (29%) of small businesses post images or infographics via social media. Experts recommend that you use video to maximize your return on investment.

A mere 30% of small businesses engage or share social media followers more than once per day. This is a daunting task for small businesses that manage social media accounts internally.

Small businesses still have access to affordable and accessible Los Angeles digital marketing agency tools like social media. Many small businesses still choose to not have social media accounts.

Our research shows that 38% of small businesses (63%) have a social media account, while 38% don’t.

Nearly 25% of respondents (22%) said they intend to invest in social networks in 2019, but 16% say they are not likely to use them for business.

This is a departure from Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Social Media Survey which showed that 71% of small businesses use social media.

Jeff Gibbard is the chief brand officer of From The Future in Philadelphia. He believes that the recent negative press about social media companies may have driven small businesses to look elsewhere.

Recent scandals like the one involving Cambridge Analytica have prompted a lot of negativity about social media. Social media has been associated with issues such as privacy, mental health, false information, and proliferation.

Gibbard stated that people are saying “I’ll find another way to market my company to generate similar results without taking a hit to my mental health,”

Small businesses might find other marketing channels appealing in light of this negative press.

Small businesses might also find that managing social media accounts takes too much time and resources. This can strain smaller operations.

Leslie L. Jones is an independent digital marketer and entrepreneur, based in St. Louis. She chose not to set up social media accounts for her company despite being a social-media consultant.

Jones stated that Jones chose not to maintain a social media presence, citing a lack of time. “Most of my clients, either Gen Xers or Baby Boomers, see the value in using social media but don’t want to create content or manage social accounts for businesses. My social media presence is not something I need right now because I’m so busy creating and managing clients.”

Jones chose to spend her limited time on the social media accounts of her clients rather than hers, but she intends to continue creating social media accounts.

Companies that ignore social media miss the opportunity to reach large audiences of users on social media. 2.23 trillion people log onto Facebook each day.

Shawn Alain, president of, the social media agency Viral In Nature, stated that “for the most part, it’s missing out on an enormous audience of potential customers.

Alain emphasized that small businesses that do not have a social media presence are missing out on opportunities to build authentic brands online and connect with customers organically.

Social media is a great tool for small businesses because it allows you to promote your products and services to a broad audience.

Small businesses can use social media platforms to market their products and services. They are easy to use, with simple interfaces that make them affordable. Social media management software is available for small businesses.

56 percent of small businesses employ in-house staff to manage social media accounts.

37 percent of small businesses use social media software such as Hootsuite and Buffer to manage social media.

For social media management, small businesses can also seek help from outside their company: 32% of them hire consultants or freelancers, 28% work for agencies, and 25% use influencers.

Gibbard believes that social media accounts are best managed in-house.

Gibbard stated that the best person to represent the company is the one who works in the business. They are the closest to the product, service, and consumer. They know the brand.”

Small business owners have the best voice on social media. This increases engagement and value with their online audience.

However, small businesses may find it difficult to manage accounts on multiple social media platforms. It is possible that your employees are not able to properly support all social media channels.

Alain stated, “You need an agency to manage social media properly and for the time you need it managed.”

Agency and freelancers can boost the efficiency of in-house social media workers.

Gibbard stated that social media agencies are especially valuable for tasks such as:

Management of paid advertisements
Content creation
Analytics: Making sense

A great social media Phoenix marketing agency will work with a small business to authentically represent its brand online.

Gibbard stated that agencies provide a better consulting role with the [in-house] social network resource than businesses giving up their voice.

Small businesses can look for agencies or freelancers who have the expertise to help them with social media.

Small businesses can use social media software to manage large amounts of content across multiple platforms.

Software is used to manage social media accounts by more than one-third of small businesses (37%).

Software such as Hootsuite enables small businesses to have social media teams:

You can schedule posts ahead across multiple channels
Track and monitor posts and engagement
Manage and organize campaigns and content

Ben Austin, the CEO of U.K. digital agency Absolute Digital says that his team uses Hootsuite for managing its content across multiple social channels.

Austin stated that “Hootsuite allows us to schedule posts to be shared around the clock, which allows the team to reach new audiences and provide our clients with the best exposure.”

Hootsuite, and similar platforms, allow social media managers to schedule posts ahead of time and maintain engagement.

The Hootsuite dashboard allows users to view all posts on one screen, toggle between social media networks, and toggle between them.

Hootsuite has both paid and free plans available for small businesses. However, Corina Burri is the marketing lead at Ofri. This online service provider directory, based in Zurich (Switzerland), says that her company’s free Hootsuite plan has limitations.

Burri stated that “For example, we can only use 3 social media networks with our free plan and we don’t get an analytics dashboard.” Hootsuite’s free plan, in general, is a great tool for small businesses “getting started”, like Ofri.

Hootsuite has a free version available for businesses. However, there are limited analytics and channels. Access to more advanced tools is available to small businesses.

Matthew Ross uses a similar tool TubeBuddy to manage his YouTube channel for MySlumberYard which is an online resource for mattress reviews.

Ross stated that TubeBuddy integrates our YouTube and Facebook accounts, so we can share new videos across multiple platforms simultaneously. This saves us both time and money.

TubeBuddy, like Hootsuite or other software tools, integrates social media channels. This allows smaller teams to save time and reduce their workload.

TubeBuddy helped Ross’ team automate tedious parts of audience engagement like responding to comments or direct messages on social media. This allowed them to maintain authenticity and efficiency.

Ross stated that the software allows Ross to create canned responses, allowing him to engage with subscribers and thank them quickly and efficiently. This has been a tremendous help to us. We send a personal message to every new subscriber thanking them for signing up and recommending other videos.

Small businesses often employ in-house staff to manage their social media accounts. This allows them to be authentic and voice their brand online. Software and agencies can be helpful for smaller businesses to manage behind-the-scenes challenges like scheduling posts and strategy.

Engagements and conversions are the keys to success for small businesses

The goals of the business are key to measuring success in social media campaigns. Small businesses can use social media agencies to help them identify their goals and decide which metrics they should track across every social media platform.

Nearly 25% of small businesses use engagement (24%), which includes likes, shares, and comments, to gauge the success of social media marketing campaigns. A similar percentage of small businesses use leads (24%) to measure campaign success.

Clicks through to the company site (18%) or audience growth (16%) are other indicators of social media success.

Agency managers of clients’ social media accounts need to consider important metrics. This depends on the goals of the clients and the platforms they use.

“We ask most businesses what their goal ?’,” Alain says.

Small businesses need to pay attention to what social media platforms value most. Facebook values comments and shares.

Alain stated that “Facebook wants you to spend as many hours on their platform as possible.” They want you to like posts they think you will enjoy the most, so they show you those posts. This makes you more likely to stick with Facebook.

Facebook’s algorithm places shares higher than all other interactions. The algorithm considers shares to be endorsements of content by users or brands.

Gibbard suggests comments to businesses as a way to communicate thoughtfully with their customers.

Gibbard stated that well-thought-out comments can provide qualitative data about people’s opinions about your content, and possibly open up opportunities for engaging people.

Comments can be used to track customer engagement and feedback. However, algorithms consider shares to be endorsements of a brand’s content. This boosts the content’s visibility.

Brands who want to monitor social media metrics should think about the type of engagement that is most important for their business, as well as the algorithms used by the networks.

Most small businesses use infographics and images on their social media accounts. However, video content could become more popular in the future.

29 percent of small businesses post more than one-quarter of their images and infographics on social media.

Small businesses can also post content about offers and promotions (22%), and videos (16%).

When posing for social media, Austin defaults to images.

Austin stated that 32% of marketers believe visual images are the most important form of content on social media. He said that high-quality video and images are the best way to go. They can grab your audience’s attention, help them remember your message, and build a strong identity.

Austin believes video, despite the reliability of images, is the next big trend in social media marketing.

Austin stated that “The integration video is an excellent method to drive growth across social networks including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.” With Live Video growing in popularity and more people looking to see a video related to the product/service before purchasing, it is important to consider who your audience is.

Sharing organic videos on social media is a way to present a real small business, and allows online customers to experience the product or service.

Absolute Digital, for example, posted a Facebook video to introduce its new branding to its audience. The video was shared 7 times and viewed 617 times.

The Facebook organic video makes potential customers more attracted to companies.

Many social media platforms place greater emphasis on video content, which can increase exposure for small businesses.

Gibbard stated, “It’s quite clear that all the networks favor video.” “All of our analytics support this assumption.”

Recode shows that Instagram and Facebook acknowledged that their algorithms favor video in 2017. Facebook rewards videos with higher positions in the news feed, especially if they last longer than 90 seconds.

However, posting video content can be a great way to promote small businesses beyond the algorithms of social media. Video content can be adaptable to other media.

Gibbard stated that video lends itself to being reused more easily than other content. You can create a blog post from a video and then take photos to turn them into Instagram posts. Status updates can be created.

Small businesses that want to make the most of their content can invest in video content. You can repurpose video so that your small business social media team can plan how to use it across different platforms.

While images are the most common content on small business social media accounts, videos can make content more interesting and visible through platform algorithms.

Brands can increase their engagement with their followers by posting frequently on social media.

A survey revealed that 30% of small businesses have social media accounts.

Small businesses (29%), post multiple times per week. Others post daily (16%), or monthly (10%).

Austin believes that social media engagement is crucial.

When it comes to managing social media channels, it’s not all about quantity. It’s about quality content. Austin stated that while it is important to post on Twitter at least once per day, it is equally important to not do so without good reasons. It all boils down to how you integrate social media posts with your new york digital marketing agency strategy.

Consistently posting on social media by small businesses will increase brand exposure and convert customers.

Even though small businesses are often faced with challenges managing social media engagements on multiple platforms, they can still succeed. Small businesses have fewer social media managers than larger companies, which means they can manage the content and reach engagement goals more efficiently.

Gibbard believes that small businesses should post at specific times depending on their size, resources, and needs.

Gibbard stated that if a small business has only one person responsible for marketing, it can be difficult to tell them they should post multiple times per day. You can think differently if you have a small marketing team of four to five people.

The frequency of posts will vary based on the business’s needs and resources. However, digital marketing agencies in Miami can provide strategies and support to businesses that want to maximize their organic social media efforts.

Small businesses can keep their audiences on social media engaged by posting often, but they should still make sure that their content is compelling.

Small businesses can still use social media channels to promote their brands online. However, the best strategies for social media are dependent on business goals.

Although 63% of small businesses use social media, 38% do not integrate it into their internet marketing in Las Vegas strategies. Although social media accounts can be a great asset to many businesses, they may not be the right fit for every business.

Small businesses have 56% of their social media accounts managed by in-house staff. This gives them a unique brand voice online. Small businesses often use software to manage their posts. Some even hire agencies or freelancers to help with strategy and content creation.

Engagements and conversions are the most important indicators of success. Shares are the most valuable form of social media engagement.

While images and infographics are preferred content for small businesses on social media, many social media experts stress the importance of video content.

29 percent of small businesses share multiple times per day on social media. However, they need to ensure that the content is high-quality.

Small businesses can use social media to increase their reach. Therefore, small businesses need to develop a strategy for their social media.

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