Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the modern economy. They are responsible for a large share of employment, output, and new business creation in developed countries.

This article outlines some pointers on how SMEs can reach potential clients through social media marketing.

Social media is one of the most effective ways to reach out to your target audience, build brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.

Social media marketing (SMM) is a type of internet marketing that promotes websites or brands by creating online content via social networking sites, blogosphere, video-sharing sites, and other websites.

What is social media marketing for SMEs? 

Social media marketing is a strategy of marketing that uses social media platforms to generate leads and increase sales. SMM can include creating content (such as videos or blogs), advertising products or services through social media, using social media to engage with customers, or using social networks to promote your content to a broad audience. 

Small business owners just starting with social media marketing often wonder where to begin. Knowing which platform to use and how to use it can be challenging. Thankfully, social media marketing is an incredibly versatile strategy you can apply to many situations.

Why you should invest in SMM for your SME 

Social media marketing is a cost-effective marketing strategy for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) that is highly targeted and easy to measure. SMEs often have limited budgets and a limited marketing team.

As such, they are looking for a marketing strategy to help achieve great results with a small investment. The good news is that social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest can be used by every brand, regardless of size.

You don’t need an enormous marketing budget to drive leads and revenue through social media platforms. Studies show that 85% of companies using social media to generate sales are SMEs.   

Tip 1: Define your target audience

Before setting up your social media marketing campaign, you must first understand your target audience. You need to know the demographics of your target audience, the problems they face, and what they want from your brand. Knowing the demographics will help you create a marketing campaign to solve your customers’ problems.  

You can do this by creating a persona for your target audience. A persona is a fictional representation of your target audience based on accurate data collected. It can be as simple as listing down a few key facts about your target audience. Defining your target audience is crucial as it helps tailor your content to resonate with your customer base. 

Tip 2: Produce quality content

Social media has become an ever-growing source of information and entertainment. And because of this, social media users expect brands and businesses to provide them with engaging, entertaining, and informative content.  

If you are not creating high-quality content, you miss out on a huge opportunity to connect with your audience, drive traffic to your website and increase brand awareness. You must post regular social media content, including blogs, videos, and photos. Posting regularly will help you drive traffic to your website and grow your followers on social media. By scheduling, you can also repurpose this content to keep it fresh on social media. 

Tip 3: Establish a presence on multiple platforms 

While each social media platform has nuances and benefits, they all share one thing in common: they are highly influential. Although the top three social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) are pretty different, they each have their benefits and ideal target audience.  

• Facebook is the most popular social media platform for businesses to establish a presence.

The average user spends up to 50 minutes daily on Facebook, making it the perfect platform to drive traffic to your website.

• Instagram is a visually-driven social media platform used mainly by millennials. If your target audience is millennials, then Instagram is a great platform to establish your brand.   
• Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows users to create content limited to 280 characters. Twitter is a great platform to build a loyal following and drive traffic to your website. 

 You don’t have to be active on all social media channels, but having a presence on a few platforms is ideal. Select the platforms you would like to be on, and ensure that you have a consistent posting schedule. 

Tip 4: Track and measure results

The most important part of your social media marketing campaign is tracking and measuring results. You need to follow the money to see if your campaign is successful.

Tracking your results will help you know what is working and what isn’t. Knowing you’re getting traffic and engagement on your social media posts is not enough. You need to understand why you’re getting that traffic and engagement. Understanding this will help you tailor your campaign to be more effective in the future.  

There are several ways you can track and measure your social media results. You can use social media analytics software like Hootsuite Analytics, Sprout Social, or Cyfe. You can also use free social media analytics tools such as Social Report, Track Social, or Sprout Social.

A solution for SMEs  

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate leads and sales. While developing an organic following can be cost-effective, you still need a team of people to help you. Such as a graphic designer, content creator, video editor, and social media manager. Depending on the reach you want to get, you could even need an SEO expert, paid media specialist, and WordPress developer.  

Nonetheless, we know SMEs probably don’t have enough workload or resources to justify hiring a full-time employee for each role. At Cápita Works, we have just the solution for you! Our Shared Services Center is a fully capable, expert team of marketing specialists offered at a fixed number of hours per month to entrepreneurs in flexible plans with no strings attached.  Learn more about how our SSC works.  

Bottom Line 

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach out to your target audience, build brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. Defining your target audience before creating your social media marketing campaign is essential.

You need to know the demographics of your target audience, the problems they face, and what they want from your brand. Demographics will help you create a focused marketing campaign that can solve your customers’ problems. You must produce quality content on social media, including blogs, videos, and photos, and establish a presence on multiple social media platforms. You need to track and measure your results to see if your social media marketing campaign is successful.

For any further doubts about our services, you can contact us at info@capitaworks.com.