LOCAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MEETING_DIANA DAVIS

This is a presentation on the importance of social media for small business owners.

Transcript

1. W E L C O M E L O C A L B U S I N E S S O W N E R S ! ELON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MEETING: MARCH 2016
2. AGENDA —  IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
3. 5 BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
4. #1: INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS —  According to Social Media Today 2.2 billion people in the world currently use social media, and 2 billion of those people access social media via their smart phones. —  One of the main benefits of social media marketing is the easiest to recognize, social media is an excellent way to introduce people to your brand. —  Brand awareness social media posts are the modern equivalent to a free newspaper advertisement or a flyer. It is much more cost efficient to advertise over your social media pages than through traditional marketing avenues. —  Ultimately, it is FREE marketing!
5. #2: LEGITIMIZE YOUR BRAND —  Another way social media marketing helps you gain customers is by establishing your brand as legitimate. —  A website establishes that a brand exists, but a social media page establishes that a brand is ACTIVE. —  It is also important to know that it can hurt your business if you don’t keep your social media pages up to date. Waiting months to post a new product update puts you behind your competition. —  Your social media pages establish your business is active, but you need to make sure your pages are ACTIVE as well.
6. #3: INCREASE SALES —  In the end, social media marketing helps increase your sales and revenue. —  According to an article from Forbes, within two years, more than 50% of small businesses agree social media helped them increase sales. Within five years, 70% of small business saw an increase in ROI just from a social media presence. —  As a small business owner this is a great tool to reach your customers FOR FREE. ¡  Create posts that link directly to product or promotions you may have currently going on. ¡  Post videos, pictures, or links to a special sale to bring in additional customers.
7. #4: IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE —  The fourth benefit of social media that is easy to overlook is customer service. —  Even if you have a dedicated customer service person, it is important to handle issues in a method that consumers prefer. —  This benefit of social media marketing relates back to increasing your brand. ¡  Customers want to be assured if they have a problem they can easily find help. ¡  Just by being responsive customer loyalty to your brand will increase.
8. #5: DISTRIBUTES CONTENT —  A joint study by AOL and Nielsen found that people spend more than 50% of their time online with content and an additional 30 % of time on social channels where content can be shared. —  In order to gain more customers it is important to promote your content! —  In addition to distributing content, many social media platforms allow your customers to provide feedback. ¡  Customers like to share how they feel about your products and your services. ¡  It is important for your customers to feel like they are being heard. ¡  This will create a relationship with your customers.