Social Media is Essential for New Businesses

Launching a new business can be challenging – especially when you’re going at it alone without any financial backing. What’s more, 80 new businesses are born every hour in the UK, so there’s never been more competition. If you want to succeed, you need to be able to find a way to stand out and make a great first impression.

One of the best ways of growing your brand and spreading the word about what you do is to invest in social media. Below, is three reasons why social media is so important for start-ups and new businesses.

1. It allows you to engage with real people

As the Entrepreneur website writes, networking is everything. The more people you can speak to, whether investors or potential customers, the more likely you are to succeed with your business. Digital marketing puts your brand in the face of your target audience, whether that's on social media, through content marketing or pay-per-click, and it means that you can speak to real people on the journey to growing your company.

On social media, for example, you can connect with people who are interested in your brand or product and build genuine relationships – relationships that can be used when you’re looking for advice on new products or when you want to sell your latest innovation.

2. Social Media helps you understand your customers

Unlike traditional forms of marketing, like newspaper advertising and sponsorship, social media can provide you with a wide range of data. For example, if you set up analytics on your website, you'll be able to see how long a particular user spends on your page, and even see which site they visit when they finish on yours. When you pair with this data with the sophisticated analysis tools available on the internet, you can learn to understand your customers’ needs and requirements and market your products even more effectively.

Digital marketing can also be used to accurately identify opportunities and predict the future actions of your target demographic, increasing your competitiveness and allowing you to offer products and services that people really want. Remember that you need work harder than simply posting on Twitter and writing the occasional blog – a well-rounded digital marketing campaign is essential if you want to understand your customers’ needs.

3. Social Media is growth

When you spend your marketing budget on offline advertising, you’re effectively throwing your money at a one-time campaign. While traditional marketing puts the emphasis on the top of the sales funnel, social media continues on the entire tunnel – the experience your visitors have from the second they visit your site to the moment they buy something.

Content marketing and social media offer continued and long-lasting returns. A blog entry covering a particularly useful topic, for example, could rank at the top of Google and bring you thousands of unique visitors every month. Those visitors could then sign up to your mailing list, spend time browsing your products and even buy something from you.

Building a brand through social meda means that you will not only be able to rely on fans of your products time and time again but that your campaigns will become even more effective as your brand awareness and market saturation increases.

There you have it – just three reasons why social media is an essential part of any new business or start-up. By focusing on building your brand over time and working hard to keep customers on your side, you’ll be able to enjoy continued growth and success. Good luck and let me know if I can help.

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