Asian Business Connexions

Social Media - The Complete Business Guide

The growth of social media marketing

As a small business, operating on a tight budget can be very common. Social media is one of the marketing channels that allow small businesses to operate in a cost-effective method whilst yielding strong, progressive results. As a result, social media marketing has grown at a

significant rate in the past 10 years with more businesses utilising these platforms every year. Worldwide digital ad spend worldwide by the end of 2021 had reached a whopping $455 billion US dollars, and its still growing at an impressive rate.

Why is it important for your business?

It’s clear that digital marketing accounts for a substantial amount of the world’s global ad spend which reflects the importance of this type of marketing. However, what does this actually mean for your business and why is it important?

Developing a presence on social media offers another location for your target audience to find out about you. As you begin to attract more people towards your social media

page, you can then start to educate them about your product or service. You can

also start driving more traffic towards your website to educate them more and

convert them to a valuable customer. Driving traffic towards your website or

landing page should always be your end goal to help you generate more revenue

and keep your business moving forward.

Cross-selling and up-selling are vital components in growing your business, it is one of the most important factors for increasing revenue. Social media allows you to

execute these perfectly. Once a customer has interacted with you once, you can

use all the data that social media holds to begin re-targeting these customers

to promote more of your products and services to them with the aim of

increasing revenue.

Social media is one of the most cost-effective methods for marketing your business and it is also one of the most useful tools for analysing return on investment. It is

free to start a business page on social media and begin marketing, however,

there are some costs involved. Social media marketing will start to consume a

lot of your time as you start to grow your presence. Monitoring, listening and

engaging in social conversation will increase and you will need to increase the

amount of time you dedicate to doing these activities. This is an important

point to consider because time is your most valuable asset. You may have the

time available to manage social media or you may need to outsource this work so that you can focus on developing the core aspects of your business.

The Risks of not using Social Media

Quite a number of businesses have created and regularly review a risk register – it’s a great tool to understand the main risks that exist which could affect your business, how serious the risk is and the severity of the impact on the business. But how many of us have considered the direct consequence of not engaging in a structured digital media strategy and the effect of that on the business?

In today's world, digital marketing is critical for success in business. Those that adopted the changing landscape early on have made fantastic strides in both their delivery but also the understanding of how to effectively manage their digital marketing, and usually, this is getting the realisation that an external team can have much more impact than a business owner.

Typically, a lot of small businesses don’t engage with digital marketing for a number of reasons such as they believe they can’t afford it, they haven’t got the resources, they haven’t got the time and they haven’t got the skills or knowledge to generate the outcome they are looking for.

While that statement is a general statement, it does make us ask the question – what are these businesses losing out on? What is the risk to businesses that don’t have a strong presence on digital marketing platforms?

Let’s have a quick look at 4 key areas of risk that businesses may be missing:

You risk being out of the loop. Digital media, across all platforms, is a key channel for consumers collecting information and connecting with other consumers. It is also a great opportunity for companies to engage with current customers, as well as potential customers, all over the world. By not using digital marketing as a business tool, you run the risk of losing customers, credibility, and crucial information that can benefit your business. Even if you choose not to actively participate in discussions, you need to be aware and stay informed regarding conversations about your company. Don’t stick your head in the ground and hope for social media to “blow on by.”

You can’t respond to negative comments about your business. When customers are not satisfied with your product or service, one of the first things many will do is complain on Twitter or Facebook, or they will write a bad review online. If you are not actively keeping tabs on these discussions and reviews, they can hurt your reputation and cost you potential business. How can you protect your brand if you don’t know what’s being said about it online?

Social media is now, arguably, the default platform for customer service. Instead of calling you to complain on a personal level, consumers want to send businesses a tweet or post something on a Facebook page. More and more sites are becoming mainstream, that allows customers the chance to review your product or service – so it is critical you’re aware of all comments around your organisation.

However, if customers have a relationship with your company, they are much less likely to take such actions and will instead send you an email or a private message about the problem. You can use digital marketing to start and define that relationship moving forward.

You risk missing the positive comments about your business. Customers also leave positive feedback online about companies with which they do business. However, if they believe their comments won’t be read by the companies they are praising, satisfied customers are less likely to leave feedback. Additionally, positive comments can drive forward positive digital marketing – I mean, we all want to work with or buy from businesses we know are successful right.