There’s no doubt that the internet is a huge place with lots of businesses marketing their products or services.   Every day, anyone who surfs the web and/or uses social media will see advertisements and carefully targeted content marketing for some of the most well known companies in the world.   While the internet is a huge space, that doesn’t mean you should shy away from utilizing it to reach out to potential customers and clients just because you may own a small local business and have a much smaller target to reach out to.

Here are 4 reasons why local businesses should jump on the social media bandwagon. 

1) Your current customers are at your fingertips and opportunities for interaction are ample –  In this digital age, almost everyone utilizes some form of social media to communicate with friends and family as well as to follow what their favorite bands, restaurants, brands, and even local services are up to.  If you have a list of current customers and an advertising budget, all you need to do is hop on a social media outlet like Facebook and most of those folks will be accessible you simply by searching for them. You can send them a personalized message asking for them to “like” your page or “follow” you on Twitter. What’s more, local businesses who carefully implement content marketing into their social media strategy tend to provide their customers with a much more personalized interaction opportunity.  If you go to the Facebook for a large chain restaurant, there might be a lot more interaction, but how frequently does the CEO tweet or comment back?  Your “mom and pop” coffee shop?  Now there’s a real opportunity to thank each customer for his/her business and interact with them regularly.  That customer service will take you a long way.

2) Two words: TARGETED ADVERTISING –  The best part about advertising a local business on one of the largest social media sites like Facebook?  It will cost you little money!   Facebook stores your data and allows you to target your advertisements to a very small demographic.  For instance, you can tailor your advertisement for your local nail salon to only reach women between the ages of 25 and 55 within a 10 mile radius of your business.   Sure, your advertisement might reach LESS people, but they’ll be more relevant.   This will save you money in the long run.   Quality always trumps quantity, right?

3) It gives you a chance to show off that you care about your community –  Just as company culture is important for employees, caring about your community is important to locals who frequent your business.  We’re not saying you need to be a brown-noser, but publicly showing support for the town’s high school band or complimenting other businesses in the area on their services makes you much more attractive to your customer base.  Additionally, you can post offers available only to a certain demographic which can only help your business.  An example?  If you’re a hairdresser, you can offer a 20% discount to all local high school students for prom updo’s.

4) You can share your products/services within local groups of interest – Another free marketing bonus?  You can join local groups on groups such as Facebook and LinkedIn and interact with members within those groups as your business.  While we’d never advocate for spamming groups with advertisements for your business, if someone pops on your town’s local group looking for a hairdresser, you can introduce yourself and offer your services.

As you can see, there are many reasons why social media marketing definitely has a home in the local business world.   We here at Mr. Pipeline specialize in helping small local businesses grow their sales pipeline and improve upon their customer service skills via social media.

Contact Erin Ernest, our Marketing Director at Erin@MrPipeline.com for more information on how we can help your local business thrive in 2015 and beyond.