Social media has quickly become one of the most effective ways to communicate with a wide-range of people, all in one area. Today, over 80% of local businesses already use social media to promote their business, so if your company hasn’t taken part in this strategy you are one of the 20%, which is quickly declining. While word of mouth was once the most effective way to promote a local business, the power of social media networking has quickly taken over this method in terms of effectiveness. There are many reasons why social media networking is beneficial for local businesses, and creating loyal customer relationships are just one of these benefits.
Using social media for your business is an effective way to bring more foot traffic in. Since the creation of social media networks, businesses have been offered an amazing opportunity to connect with customers and bring new customers in. Social media allows you to keep your customers updated with the latest happenings of your business and gives you the opportunity to offer special promotions to those in your network. Special offers will help draw in more customers and entice them to visit your business establishment.
True CRM tools like BatchBook make it easy for you to append your existing customer data with social media activity. This can also be done with prospective clients that you are trying to target towards your business. This is a great way for you to measure how active your customers are on the social networking sites, discover what influences them, makes them tick and then use this information to make your business more important to them.
Some of these social media networks allow you to create a group, which is a great way to interact with your customers on a topic that is not about your business, but related to it. For example; a camera shop can create a group for people with a photography hobby. This type of group will allow you to connect with prospects, share information, communicate and use a strategy that doesn’t blatantly promote your business, but incorporates it.
Creating a blog for your local business is a very powerful social networking tool. Owning a blog is becoming an extremely common and effective way to provide your audience with useful information that is related to your business. For example; if you run a plumbing business, you’ll want to have a blog that talks about different plumbing techniques, tips and so on. You could also connect with other local businesses to create a great local resource that is ultimately targeted at driving more customers to your company.
If you have a website for your business, which is another way to grow your business rapidly, you can link your business website to your social media networks. When a potential customer clicks on one of your social networking sites and connects with your businesses social media network, you are given the chance to connect with your customers at a more personal level. By creating personalization with potential customers you can also create engagement.
