Let’s face it, social media is big and it’s become ever more important for businesses to market themselves on social media platforms. This is as true for fortune 500 companies as it is for local businesses. In fact, using social media as a marketing platform might even be more important for smaller local businesses than for big international companies. That’s because users often use local search as a way to find businesses in their immediate area.
Why Many Knoxville Businesses Are Staying Behind
Despite the fact that social media is an important marketing tool, it’s not for everyone. Some business owners can’t stand the thought of spending hours every week promoting their product or service online.
This is understandable, if you’re a business owner, you’ll know how much responsibility already comes with your job. From sorting out finances, to delegating tasks to your team and checking up on the progress, being a business owner simply isn’t as glamorous as many people think it is. It’s difficult to take your fate into your own hands, as you feel the weight of that responsibility on your shoulders each and every day as you’re making choices. This can become even harder when you have employees that depend on you for a living, as any bad choices you make will no longer only affect you and your family.
And while owning your own business is certainly rewarding, chances are you’ve never had a lack of things to keep you busy. This has always been the case for business owners, even long before the existence of social media.
Unfortunately, the pressure of running a business is what keeps many business owners from getting on social media. Social media management can be a time consuming commitment – a commitment many business owners simply can’t make.
And committing to social media marketing becomes more difficult the less a business owner knows about social media to begin with. Plenty of business owners are so focused of their profession and striving to improve at delivering the best quality possible to customers, that learning about social media management can seem irrelevant.
Social media is an ever-changing space on the Internet, meaning that excellence in social media management requires ongoing interest and research in the field of marketing. Most business owners aren’t able to put in the time it requires to stay up to date with social trends.
Social Media Management Time Saving Tips
As a business owner, there’s no doubt that you want to improve your profit while growing your business and attracting more customers.
Social media marketing can help you do just that! Better yet, you can get social media accounts for your business on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest for free! The only thing you’ll have to pay for is social media ads.
However, getting your social media set up isn’t even half the battle won. The hard part is social media management. That’s because your social media will require constant work, and if you’re struggling with the same problems as many other business owners, you simply won’t have time.
The best way to keep your social media up to date regularly is to use a scheduling tool or paying an employee or company, such as Serious SEM, to do so for you. Scheduling tools allow you to create social media content in advance and schedule posts for later. That way you can schedule your posts a week or a month is advance in one sitting.
Social scheduling certainly lightens the daily load of posting. However, you should remember to still leave some time every day to respond to comments on your posts.
The best advice for busy business owners who want to DIY social media is to focus on sharing quality posts rather than aiming for quantity.
What If I’m Clueless About Social Media for Business?
To Millennials and even many members of Generation X, the idea of being clueless about social media marketing seems absurd. But don’t let this get you down. If you feel clueless about social media marketing, you’re not alone.
I’ve stopped counting the times I see a business with a Facebook profile rather than a page. This means that the business owner went off and started a brand new Facebook account for their business. Unfortunately, this isn’t the right way to do it. Businesses are meant to have Facebook pages, not personal accounts. These business owners were obviously somewhat confused about navigating the social media world, but I’d certainly give them credit for trying!
If you, like many other business owners, feel confused about where to even start with getting your business on social media, your best bet is to hire a professional social media management company. Many local marketing companies offer affordable rates for social media management services. Your marketing company will also be able to help you set up and manage paid ads on social media.
With the right marketing company working for you, you should be able to see amazing results from your business social media.
Social Media Management for Small to Medium-sized Businesses
At Serious SEM, we offer professional social media management services. While we focus mainly on local businesses in Knoxville and other areas of Tennessee, we also work with clients in other parts of the US. Through our work, we hope to make Internet marketing attainable for more businesses.
The Internet is becoming the go-to place for young people to find local businesses for almost any thinkable product or service. Without an online presence, your business will be left behind, and you’ll miss out on large amounts of new customers. We want to help prevent that from happening by empowering small to medium-sized business owners who to compete online. Whether you’re unsatisfied with your current social media results, or you don’t have social media at all, we can help you attract more customers for your business online.