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How to Use Social Media for Small Business Essay

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Using social web is probably the most cost effective marketing tool available that allowed businesses to manage brand reputation, advertise, served customer, broadcast, and network (Fine, 2010). The social media has become a widespread phenomenon and global trend because of the popularity of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook (Hinchcliffe & Kim, 2012). In the recent study conducted by LinkedIn, 94% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool and 49% use it for research to grow business (Weiss, 2014). The social media maybe cheap but it is not easy to implement. Many small business owners still hesitate to implement it because of lack of knowledge. Small business owners also fear the cost of time to be invested in …show more content…

Listening to existing conversations, learning who and what the customers are talking, and joining the conversations (Hinchcliffe & Kim, 2012). In the end, people, friends, customers, and vendors still crave face-to-face communication, and small business owners should use social media to accomplish this craving.
2. Have a realistic expectations
For a small business to be successful with social media, it is vital to have realistic expectations. Small business owners should not expect that social media is a solution for a failing business. It usually will take some time to develop strong relationships with the customers and audience. In addition, small business owners who are just starting should start small. Small business owners should find out where the customers gather: Twitter Facebook, LinkedIn— or maybe even YouTube (Simonds, 2013). Another way to be successful in using social media is being realistic on the timing of answering or postings comments in the social media. Generally, the best time of the day to check social media is before or after dinner time. This is the typical time when most people check their social media especially for working individuals (Lee, 2014).
3. Use appropriate and effective channels
Many of small business owners thinks that they need to be everywhere in social media – this is a mistake. Creating an effective social media does not mean that they need to be in all social media

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