In episode 33 of the Digital Marketing Creators Podcast, we're going to talk about social media marketing benefits for small businesses. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Digital Marketing Creators Podcast where we help creators and entrepreneurs just like you magnify your brand message through digital marketing tips and strategies. Now, your host Andre Vaughn.

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Let's see if we can help you with your personal brand or help your business generate more leads and sales. I'm still amazed at the businesses that don't use social media marketing and just don't use social media. So social media marketing the right way, with all the benefits that it has for small businesses, you would think that a lot of these companies would use it not just even companies but people that build personal brands, you would think that they use them or use these platforms the proper way, there's so many benefits to this, I can actually make this, I can actually make this a 30-40 minute or longer episode talking about all the benefits, but I'm just going to point out a few. And I'm also going to talk about some disadvantages of social media marketing, also.

But the first thing that I have in mind is or the first thing that comes to mind is the ability to drive traffic to your website. Or if you have, if you're a local establishment, even, you know, if you are brick and mortar, the way you can drive traffic, even foot traffic to your local store. driving traffic is one of the one of the top things that you want to do, I guess the purpose of wanting the purposes of being on social media, but it's a benefit. It doesn't have to be, you know, your sole, sole purpose, but it can be a huge, huge benefit for your business. And you can do that whether it's the organic route, or it's the paid route, using you know, pay per click. Or if you are using different methods for organic, maybe you started a Tic Toc, or maybe you are using YouTube shorts. But the ability to drive traffic to your website, or your business engine in general was is easier nowadays. If you are using a platform like Tic Toc, for example, after you get 1000 followers, you can put a link there, you can put a link to your website or a link to a freebie that you're offering or something to that effect. YouTube shorts, you can always put a link in your comments. You can pin a comment, or you can put a link in your description to drive traffic but you still have to deliver on your content. Regardless whether it's paid whether it's organic, you have to know what is the right content to put out for your particular audience. So driving that traffic is very important. And it's a it's a great benefit of social media marketing for your small business.

Second thing that I want to talk about is the retargeting opportunities. I think this is huge. And a lot of people don't really understand how this works. You can use platforms like Facebook, I just like to say Facebook, Instagram, even though Google is technically not a social media platform, but I like to throw it in there because you have YouTube also. So whether you're using, you know the search function, the search engine function of the you know, the Google search engine, and if you use in YouTube videos and gone to traffic that way, it's a huge opportunity but retargeting is huge. I like Facebook and Instagram where, if you have a pixel setup, a pixel is a piece of code, if you have a piece of code setup on your website and you drive traffic there, or if you're like I said, if you're given a free giveaway, a freebie a free ebook or free mini course, or just something free, that you can help a potential customer with, if you have that pixel on your on your website, you could retarget or, like I said, if you have that action of, you know, giving away a freebie you can retarget that particular person or you can retarget on Facebook, you can do things like you can make a custom audience. On Facebook, the data and algorithm is so good that you can mimic a particular customer, or potential customer that signed up for you, they will put an audience of people that fit that description right in front of you. And you can do that you can also upload emails. So a lot of those emails that you get, you can upload those to Facebook and target those particular people. And then like I say, with the retargeting, you can target people that's like those people that gave you their email and so on and so forth. So using a pixel is awesome using Facebook. So that's a huge benefit. Most business owners I don't think they really really understand what they're missing and the power of using these platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Like I said previously Google and YouTube and things of that nature. So real real advantage to the business owner.

Another thing that I like is it's great for you can use these social media platforms for customer service they can actually better your customer service. The reason I say that is it kind of put pressure on on you to want to do better because you're out and open now you know you have people on Twitter that out you you know on Facebook that out to a if something's not right, you know people they'll definitely let you know but I think it a better your operations as a as a company, when you have customers or potential customers as honest about the feedback that that they give you and they can better your overall customer service and better the experience of that particular customer as well.

The fourth benefit for your business that social media marketing can have on it is I believe that brand awareness is very important. So social media marketing, it can legitimize your brand, especially if you are you know, engaging with a potential customer All in all, it legitimizes your brand because people are gonna look, they're gonna look you're, they're gonna look if they're interested in you, they're gonna look you up. So they want to see if you have maybe, let's say if you just have if they're if they're on if they see you on Facebook, but maybe they engage on Twitter more than they do on Facebook. So they're gonna look see if you have a Twitter page, they're gonna look you up if they're interested in you. Brand awareness is is very important. I've talked about this in the past where I think that people should focus on building a brand more so than a business and I'm using air quotes, building a brand because if people know like and trust your brand, they will definitely definitely share it with their friends and just share it period if they had a great experience with your brand. So brand awareness is very important and social media marketing benefit. Your it will benefit your small business by legitimizing your overall pray and

Quick break in the episode. I want to talk about a resource page that I put together with a lot of helpful things on or something much different than the show notes. So SAS things such as our ebooks and audio books, a whole bunch of other resources with affiliate links and things like that. So make sure you check that out at Digital Marketing creatives.com forward slash resources, digital marketing creators.com forward slash resources, check it out, back to the show.

I think the one thing that and this is the fifth benefit, I think the one thing that people don't talk about much what they don't emphasize it is the speed of doing anything you desire for your business, no matter what stage you are in, especially if you have the resources and that's where the you know, paperclip comes in it. And you can get data because you always want to go in and look at your analytics on any of these platforms. The speed of doing anything, whether it's not just you know, pay per click but you know, it fits a content if you're putting out organic content and you're using, like I said earlier in this episode, if you're using tick tock or YouTube shorts, and you're able to get a lot of views on a particular piece of content, and find out a lot more about that audience by looking into your analytics, so the speed of doing anything that you desire for your business is a huge benefit. And people don't think about that. But that's very important when it comes to social media marketing, for your small business.

A couple of disadvantages of social media marketing. And I spoke about this also not too long ago, here in this episode about feedback, you can receive negative feedback, kind of open yourself up for potential on platforms like Twitter, you know, people can out you, if they don't have a good, you know, they can leave bad reviews on Facebook, things such as that. So you have to, you have to really be on your P's and Q's as they say, about not receiving negative feedback. But then if you get negative feedback, you have to know how to handle that. And I don't think you handle negativity with negativity, that's never good for anyone, you can never come out a winner by doing that. So just have things in place to deal with the negative feedback if it's too vulgar, or if it's too way out of line, you can always block those people or what have you.

But if it's some legit, you should want to get in front of and, and get in front of a fast, I think that can't be anything but good when you do it that way. Also, thing I want to talk about is, you know, you can open yourself up for embarrassment, a lot of times with with social media, you know, we're putting ourselves out there, putting ourselves on video, you know, we're writing content, you know, we're posting pictures, and, you know, maybe infographics and you know, things like that, you open yourself up for embarrassment, you have to get comfortable with these platforms.

It took me a while before I put out a podcast. So I had to get comfortable with speaking, I'm not the best speaker, by no stretch of the imagination, you know, I talk and flip over my words and all of that stuff. But I do the best that I can, when these podcast episodes are edited, I have to make sure that I do the best that I can. But I talk and flip over words all day long, but I'm not gonna, I'm not going to record a whole new episode, or I'm not going to get jittery about it. But it it took a while for me to get comfortable to speak by and his microphone, the potential for embarrassment is always there, but just get comfortable. With social media as best you can, you know, you, you're always gonna have somebody saying, saying something out of line. Everybody's not gonna like you, everybody's not gonna like what you say, everybody's not gonna like your glasses. Everybody's not gonna like the shirt. Yeah, I've only you know, your nose, your eyes, you know, people not gonna like and that's their problem. That's just the way I look at it. But I, you know, the comments and things like that I don't, I would never go on there yelling and screaming back at people who are in my words or whatnot. I just wouldn't do that. I don't think that's a good way to handle any situation.

The third disadvantage, and this is the last one I want to talk about, um, you must spend a lot of time on your content, spend a lot of time on your content. And what I mean by that is not necessarily spending a whole lot of time on it, like if you I mean, if you're creating a piece of content, you want to make sure that it's on point, make sure it's on point. So if you're creating a long form YouTube video, you want to make sure that there is a lot that goes into that. So it's not just recording a video and uploading it, there's a lot that goes into that. But if you're writing something like a blog post a lot that goes into it, and also just have to make sure you spend time looking over your work and things like that. Or if you are if you have a podcast, you have to make sure that you listened to the reluctance of episode before you press publish, you know, so make sure that you add it in the right places, and so on and so forth. So I think that's very important because a lot of benefits of social media marketing and you know, you have some some did some disadvantages, you have way more benefits and you have way more disadvantages as well but I wanted to make sure I put an episode out about the benefits more so the positive than then the negative side but the negative side or the disadvantages, they are real.

Also, make sure you check out our private Facebook group at Digital Marketing creators.com forward slash group. If you got any questions go in there ask him and hatless chatted up in there. Also. Our private Marty said our private Facebook group has got us They also our show notes, show notes at Digital Marketing creators.com forward slash, Episode 33. We're at 33 episodes are going to keep this thing going. The Show Notes once again, digital marketing creators.com forward slash, Episode 33. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode and a we will see you in the next episode of the digital marketing Creators Podcast. Thank you and enjoy.

As a creator or entrepreneur, you have so many things coming your way in terms of online marketing, digital marketing, and it can be so confusing but we broke it down in this free mini course that we have. It's called the five day digital marketing mini course and you can get that at DigitalMarketingCreators.com/free-mini-course or anywhere on that website you should see something where you can sign up for that free course and it's not a long course either. It's a real short course and you know, we didn't want to take up a lot of your time when we put it together but it kind of guides you through different aspects of of digital marketing and we try to keep it condensed for you. So check that out at DigitalMarketingCreators.com/free-mini-course.

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