Social Media Marketing for Small Business – Essential Today
In 2018 and beyond, if it isn’t already for you, social media marketing is going to be absolutely essential for every kind of business type you can think of. In this post, I’m going to talk about why. So check it out.
At CloudBooks, we work with thousands of businesses across all kinds of industries and social media marketing we’re seeing is becoming more and more important every single day. In fact, in our opinion, in 2018 and beyond, it’s going to be absolutely vital for every single business to have a strong social presence if they want to be competitive today. So some verticals like e-commerce, you know, social media picked up a while back. It’s been effective, it’s still effective. And it’s going to be more effective. But for other verticals, like let’s say, plumbers, it hadn’t been as effective until now. And we can see now into the future that even for a plumber, social media marketing is going to be absolutely essential.
Let’s talk about some examples of that and some different reasoning why we have this thought process and really break this down. So number one, I kind of talked about how the plumbers are seeing more effectiveness now. Why do I think that? I think that because I’m seeing that. We have customers that are plumbers. In fact, we have one customer that’s been with us for two years, spent a lot of money on Google ads when he first started with us, had great, great results. But the market is shifting, right?
Those results are starting to fall down a little bit now. And so he’s looking for ways to increase the results back up. And he’s really invested in social media marketing. And so you would think an Instagram account for a plumber, does that even make sense? Well, it actually does, and that’s what we’re seeing. Because as he’s posting content on social media, on Instagram, coupons, different information about his businesses, it’s building brand awareness. Here’s the thing, guys, Millennials, and Generation Zs, Generation Alphas, which are the real little kids, they’re not using Google. These people are using Instagram, and Facebook, and Snapchat, and all these other tools like YouTube all day. What this younger audience is going to do, if they’re already on Instagram, they’re not going to go out of Instagram to search on Google. Why would they do that? They’re going to stay on Instagram.
They’re going to search #city plumber, Fort Collins plumber, Denver plumber, whatever it might be. And they’re going to see who’s there. If you’re not there, you don’t exist. Even if you’re ranking at the top of the page on Google, they’re not looking there. So if you want to be successful in the future, you have to be where your consumers are. And the younger audience is all on social media. So it’s vital to build a presence on social media, to be posting content to social media and to be there. That when they look, they find you, and you’re going to get the business. So this plumber is ahead of the curve and they’re seeing great results and you should be too.
The second point I’d like to make is that marketing has come full circle. Before search what did people do? They basically asked for referrals. “Hey, where do you go for a plumber? Hey, who do you get your hair cut with? Hey, what accountant do you use?” We used to ask our friends, ask our family, and they would give us this feedback, right? Because before the internet, that was the easiest way to get those results. But then when Google came out and search became so easy, the referral system kind of went away, right? So we would just go search on Google. That’s why it was so valuable to market there. Well, we’ve come full circle. Now we’re back to the referral business where people are again saying to their friends and family and followers, “Hey, who do you guys use for this? Who do you guys use for that?” And if you don’t have a social presence, you’re not in the mix now, right? Because this communication is occurring like it did in the old days. But now it’s through social media.
They’re direct messaging with each other. They’re sharing this content on social media. And so if you have a social presence that people are seeing you, you’re going to be top of mind. So when somebody asks for a plumber and they’ve seen you around, maybe they didn’t even use you, they’re going to think of you. They’re going to share that post that they saw recently. They’re going to think of your name and direct message you and say, “Hey, check these guys out.” So it’s very important to start building this social presence now because this is where the market is shifting. And if you’re not there, you’re not going to get this referral business anymore.
The third point I’d like to make is about social proof. Social proof is more and more important today. Even if somebody did find you on Google, more and more, they’re doing a spot check on your reputation and your social presence before they call you or fill out a form. What they’re going to do is they’re going to go check on social, check on Facebook, check on Instagram. If you don’t have any followers, if you don’t have a presence there, you’re considered uncool. And so if you want to be cool and be a hip business in a younger generation and a younger demographics mind. You’re going to have to have social proof, which means you have a good amount of followers. You are posting content frequently, you’re engaging with your community, you’re active, you’re a new business, you’re modern, you’re cutting edge. So why wouldn’t I go with you? This is a thought process that people go through during the buying cycle. So make sure you have that in place. Or you’re going to be missing out on sales.
Here’s the deal. What do you look like on social? Do you have more followers than your competitor, or do they have more than you? Right? Are you posting content frequently? Do you have great designs? Does your content add value to your followers? Are they learning from you? Are you cutting edge? Are you doing videos? Video is key today. What things are you doing to build your brand presence on social media? Because this is where the consumers live now, right? The main TV channels at night used to be ESPN, and ABC, and NBC. People would sit down on their couch and they’d watch those TV channels.
That still exists, except for they’re on their couch. They’re looking at Instagram, they’re looking at YouTube, they’re looking at Facebook. And if you’re not there, you’re not a part of the conversation in their mind when they’re thinking about who to do business with.
