Last Updated on May 30, 2019 by Numinix Developer
This is the first in a series of blogs about how to use Facebook and Twitter to grow your business. Facebook and Twitter are social media sites that allow you to converse on a continual basis with friends, colleagues, and customers. Later we will get into more detail on how to actually set up and run a Twitter account and a Facebook Business Page. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how to use these great social media sites for your business, we need to talk about why you should use them at all. I’ll give you three great reasons: communication, connection, and competition.
Communication
One of the biggest problems new businesses have is getting their name out in to the public where people can actually see what they do. Facebook and Twitter are a great avenue for you to have opportunity to communicate to a massive audience without spending tons of money. Consider these statistics.
- Facebook now has more than 400 million active users. Twitter is slightly behind at 106 million, but still climbing at a rapid rate.
- Twitter adds 300,000 users every day. Facebook adds about 1.6 million!
- 70% of Facebook’s users are outside of the U.S., meaning you can reach a global audience
- The average user spends nearly one hour per day on Facebook alone.
- There are 60 million status updates being posted on Facebook every day and over 55 million tweets being sent out per day. That’s a lot of communication going on via these two social networks.
So if you want to get the news about your site out in a big way, Facebook and Twitter will help you with that.
Connection
As mentioned above you can reach a great number of potential customers through the use of social media sites. If you want them to be customers, you have to connect with them in some way, and Facebook and Twitter are great for that. You can post upcoming events, offer advice and help, and let your customers see the human side of your company. You can offer customer service in real time, which would be much appreciated by all of your customers. These outlets allow you to begin a conversation with your customers that leads to a relationship that can last for years. Facebook lets you create a fan page, which people can subscribe to and recommend to their friends. That causes your network to expand. By utilizing management applications that are available with these sites, you can connect with many of your customers without spending tons of time doing it. So Facebook and Twitter are fast, easy and rewarding avenues of connection.
Competition
Let me hit you with a few more hard truths. 20% of all small businesses in the United States are using social media in their business. This is more than double the amount from last year. So there is a good chance that others in your sphere are using these sites. The great news is that 80% of them aren’t. That means you can take the lead by learning how to use Facebook and Twitter effectively. By next year, it is predicted that over half of all small business owners will be using these sites to reach out to customers, stay up on the latest trends in their specialty and monitor what is being said about both their site and the sites of their competitors. Surely you want to be on the upside of that.
So you see, social media is not the end all be all, but it is a valuable tool for your business. I am not telling you that by diving into Facebook and Twitter you will see your business grow by double digit numbers. However, you just might. When used properly, you can communicate with large numbers of people, provide a real connection between your business and customers, and stay one or two steps ahead of the competition. Come back tomorrow and we’ll show you how to get started on Facebook.