The Benefits of Social Media for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Social media today presents entrepreneurs with a pool of opportunities to expand their businesses and boost their profitability. Most social networking sites were initially meant to help friends and relatives connect with each other online. This is still a core function even though businesses are increasingly exploiting the connections to advance their business objectives.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and others are great platforms for small businesses to not only expand their businesses through conversion of the connections to buyers, but also essential tools that businesses can utilize to handle their customer care services. Engaging with the customers on the social platforms helps to understand their needs better and improve on service delivery.

Closely connected to customer care representation is the crisis management role that social media play. In the recent past, social media has helped both SMEs and multinationals effectively in handling different crises. One major mistake that many businesses commit when faced by a crisis is failure to acknowledge. The truth has some funny way of sneaking from closed door board rooms to the public domain. Your competitors can take advantage of any crises you may be facing and blow them out of proportion for their own benefit. If you have a reasonable social media presence, let your customers understand that everything is under control.

One of the main areas that small businesses have made good use of social media is in advertising and marketing. It is pointless to produce, if you cannot sell. To sell, you have to advertise and market. Initially, companies had to use television, newspapers or other conventional media to get the information about their services and products out. This was an expensive exercise as not many people could afford. As a result, competitors applied monopolistic practices and unfair competition. Today, all you need is a reasonable number of Facebook fans, Twitter likes or YouTube views and you can both advertise and market your products and services at minimal costs.

Of great significance to social media users is the high conversion rate. It is far much easier to convert your followers and friends to buying customers. People who follow you on Twitter must have interest in your product. Therefore, if you are launching a new product, they are likely to be interested in the same. Any serious business must include a shopping cart on their website. You move the traffic from either Facebook or Twitter to your site, let them explore the products and services, and allow them to make an order and pay online. Running a small business is now easier and any determined entrepreneur can do it with little capital.

To get the best from social media for your small or medium enterprise, you must lay out a plan. Do you really need to join social networking site? What is the goal? The objective may be for promotional purposes, customer relations, marketing and advertising, sales, among others. The goals have to be measurable. The most important question however is, which of the many social networking sites is fit for your business? To answer this, consider reviewing where most of your customers belong. To stay safe, use more than one, have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account for a start.

Finally, ensure that the social media accounts are professionally managed. Keep your connections up to date with the goings in the business as well as social issues.

Courtesy: Various sources