Social media is a great way to engage with your current, prospective clients and customers. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram offer a way for small business owners to display their products and services, advertise special promotions, and connect with their market.

Due to the reach of sites like Facebook, your small business has an unparalleled chance to reach prospective clients and customers that previously would not have been available with traditional marketing. Social media is an important part of any overall marketing strategy, and it allows you to engage with your “people” in a more timely and casual way than traditional advertising and print media.

Wikipedia defines Social media marketing as “the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites.” Social media sites include very popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, as well as lesser-known social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg. Facebook is an especially powerful tool for business owners to reach their customers and prospects due to the high numbers of people that use Facebook especially if you are in the business to consumers market. According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2014, 57% of American adults have a Facebook account, and 70% of Facebook users visit the site weekly and over 21% users visit daily. Figures are very similar in the UK just over 52% of the population have a Facebook account. These people are your possible clients or customers, and if you offer them information that is humorous, stimulating, or otherwise engaging, it is like having a conversation with a friend. You get attention through “Likes” and “Shares” of your content.

One of the good things about social media is the way content that is excellent and engaging can only “go viral” — if that the content has been shared and very quickly goes over the internet. Usually, this occurs because it is especially funny, outrageous, or newsworthy. Even if your content isn’t appalling or terribly amusing, if people find it valuable, inspiring, or otherwise of benefit, they will share it with their friends and help spread the word about your business.

But there is one problem: Generating and posting to your social media accounts is almost a full-time job, and a lot of small business owners do not have both the time to create the content needed to post even once a day, or the money to hire an in-house social media consultant.

If you choose to manage your social media accounts, reflect upon how much time you would have to dedicate each week to finding exciting things to write about — and then basically rewriting about them — and then also somehow find the time to post them to your social media accounts. Remember to repeat this weekly, since you expect a constant stream of engaging content. Try to run your business at the same time. For most of us, acting as our social media manager is nearly impossible.

If you don’t want to do it yourself, then you could hire an employee to manage your social media. According to PayScale.com, the average wage for a social media manager is £25,717 and don’t ignore to add in benefits, employment taxes, and the problem of managing another employee.

You can outsource your social media management, but it’s typically pretty expensive. Social media can cost thousands of pounds a month; in 2014, the typical price to manage a Facebook page was £1,200 a month! Compared to that, Search Found SEO’s prices are an absolute steal: You get daily content posted on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for a part of that.

Managing your social media just doesn’t have to be that complicated or expensive. Search Found SEO starts the social media management process by asking a series of detailed questions about your business to customise your social media content to your business. We’ll then start posting engaging, timely, and shareable content to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages. Let Search Found SEO take over your social media management, and you can get on with what you do best: Running your business.

If you don’t have social media accounts and a marketing strategy, you’re missing out on an opportunity to share your message online with your prospective clients and customers, and to have them pass it on to their friends. Call Search Found SEO today at 0131 3413056 to create a social media management strategy that makes the phone ring!
Click here if you have questions about what you should expect to pay for social media management services.