6 Reasons to Use Social Media in Your Business

1. Avoid a Gate Keeper
The days of cold calling an office, getting through a receptionist, smooth talking an executive assistant to finally reach a decision maker are over…  if you know how to use social media to gain access to the right people.  You can approach almost anyone through social media these days:  CEO’s, actors, musicians and anyone that used to be virtually impossible to connect with directly.  By building your presence on social media and knowing the method/tools to strategically reach the right people, you can avoid the old-school ways that no longer work in business.

2. Innovators Always Win
Those that jump in early, get acquainted with technology and carve out their space are more often than not the big winners.  The longer you wait to become fully engaged in social media, the harder it will be to get caught up and build a presence.  Invest your time and money into learning the most innovative methods to leverage social media in your business.

3. Wider Net = Greater Opportunities
The fisherman who has a huge net will more than likely catch more fish than a fisherman with a much smaller net.  The same holds true for the internet – the more exposure you can create for your business online, the more likely you are to attract your ideal prospects.  Social media is a very efficient way to reach a lot of people and get a lot of exposure online; this exposure will undoubtedly provide you with greater opportunities to convert prospects to clients.

4. It’s Who Knows You That Counts
Since we were young, we were constantly told that “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  In reality, it’s not really who you know that’s important, but rather who knows you.  You can know thousands of people, but we want to focus on how many people know you and the product/service that you offer in your business.  Social media will allow more people to find out about you and your business, which will lead to more people doing business with you and referring you to others.  It’s who knows you that counts!

5. Free Market Research
Do you remember the days of walking through the mall and being asked to do a survey?  They would quiz you about things such as products, commercials or politics and then pay you $10 for your help.  Companies would obviously pay a great deal of money for these results, which would dictate the direction they went in.  Social media allows you to conduct FREE market research in so many different ways – you could post a potential TV ad on YouTube and ask for feedback or ask your Facebook friends for ideas on a new business slogan.  You can also search through blogs for certain keywords and see what others are saying about your business, your competitors or current trends in the industry.  There are literally unlimited ways in which you can use social media to do market research.

6. Top of Mind Awareness
It is so important in business to have top of the mind awareness for your product/service.  If you aren’t constantly visible to your target market, they can forget about you and try your competition.  For some of you, it is impossible to call all of your clients/prospects on a regular basis, or it would be terribly inefficient and might annoy them.  So how can you be in their mind constantly?  By being connected with them through social media and then providing the right type of value on a consistent basis.  They might not want to receive a call from you every day, but they love the informative articles you share about your industry, the blogs you post, the videos you create and the discounts you offer.  You are accomplishing the same objective (lots of touches), but in a much more efficient and less intrusive way (social media).  This is a great way to reach more people while doing less work and providing them with great value!