Social Media – What It Can Do, What It Can’t Do

However, what they won’t do is generate a lot of business for you directly. Yes, you will generate some sales with the special offers and coupons you post, but that’s not the primary reason for doing those things.

The primary reason is that you want to generate the kind of buzz that will raise your profile, both on the social media sites and with the search engines. Your profile in these places is what will lead to increased business – not necessarily any article, no matter how fantastic, you post on any social network site.

So why do we do it? For one thing, because social media is the least expensive marketing tool you can use. All of the sites are free – try saying that about a conventional ad buy! And when you think about it, all conventional ad buys do is raise awareness about your company. They don’t lead directly to sales anymore than social media does.

In addition, ad buys don’t build relationships because they’re a one-way communication from you to potential customers. When you build a network of online friends, you’re building eventual customer loyalty and good feeling (if you do it right). And that is far more valuable to the bottom line of your business than the biggest ad buy you can imagine.

Social media also allows us to address our customers’ problems, anticipate their needs, and even use their free feedback to help us with product development and testing. Social media eliminates the need to find expensive consultants to tell us what our customers want – our customers are more than happy to tell us themselves using social media as their tool.

Businesses from mom-and-pop shops to major corporations are increasingly turning on to the cost savings and flexibility of social media. If you truly want to compete and succeed in today’s marketplace, you need to join them and carve out your own unique niche on social media.

So get online, make friends, & watch how your business grows!