​Many small businesses make the mistake of thinking social media marketing is only for big corporations. The truth is that small, local businesses are actually much better suited to social media marketing than many large businesses are. If you own a small business in the Boston MA area, social media marketing should be included in your marketing campaigns. But why is social media marketing so important? Why is it valuable? Here are some of the biggest benefits of social media marketing for small businesses in and around Boston:

​No one can buy from your business if they do not know you exist. Twenty years ago, it might have been enough to buy an ad in the local Yellow Pages. When a consumer wanted to find a business, they would open their Yellow Pages and flip to the appropriate section. Hardly anyone does that today. Instead, they take to the internet. If you want business, you have to be where consumers expect to find local businesses: on the search engines and on social media.

​Social media is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness—and not just with people that already know about you. Just about every social media has a tool that makes it extremely easy to reach out to consumers that are likely to be interested in your product or service. With more than 66% of consumers currently using social media, it’s the ideal way to get your brand’s name in front of people who would be interested in what you have to offer.

​Before the internet, most businesses had to set up a storefront or at least have a legitimate, working phone number. Without these two things, a business would not be considered “real” and no one would buy from it. Having a social media account does the same thing for today’s businesses. Social media marketing, using an established social media profile for your business makes your brand appear as legitimate as it actually is.

Social media marketing actually works better for proving legitimacy than having a storefront and working phone number. How? Because social media is just that: social. You will be building not just business, but also personal relationships with your customers or clients (or potential customers or clients). They will get to know your personality—the core of your business, not just the name and logo.

​Having higher brand awareness and a more legitimate appearance will automatically help you sell more—but if that was all social media marketing did, it would be called public relations. When you hire our Boston MA social media marketing services, we can actually help you get more sales. How? By implementing a campaign that highlights your products and services and funnels your fans or followers towards making a purchase. From promoted content to social media-exclusive deals, social media marketing helps you sell more, and therefore, make more money.

Social media is also continuing to improve the tools it offers to brands like yours—in the coming months and years, many social media will start allowing brands to set up shop right on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These are tools you want to take advantage of, before your competitors get the leg up

​One of the biggest benefits of using social media as a business is the ability to provide real-time customer service, on a platform that your customers/clients understand and which showcases your responses to those questions or concerns. Consumers today are far more likely to jump on social media and seek out a business to ask a question or discuss a concern than they are to call a provided customer service phone number or send an email.

​Social media marketing can improve just about every other marketing campaign you might have. Your social signals are extremely important to search engine optimization, for example, and social media marketing can make sure that those signals are as strong as possible.

In addition, when someone see, hears, or reads an advertisement for your business, they will turn to the internet to learn more about your business. While this requires you to have a great website, it also means you should have a highly visible and active social media account. They can look to that account to see how you interact with your customers or clients, what your following is like, and for any relevant reviews.

Social media marketing is so much more than simply getting your posts into the feeds of potentially interested customers (though social media does, perhaps, have the very best analytics for doing just that), it is also about building and legitimizing your brand for today’s consumer.

For more information about social media marketing for small businesses in the Boston MA area, or to start your campaign, contact us today!

As a business owner, it’s not uncommon to think that a website would not benefit your small business, service, brand, or product. You’re certainly not alone in that thought. Or perhaps a website is just simply not in your budget, or maybe because you or your customers don’t need to use a computer, a website may seem unbeneficial. These are nothing more than common misconceptions with many small businesses across the globe. It’s incredibly fundamental to place your business online in order to provide your existing and potential new customers a way to engage with your business and brand without needing to pick up a phone, writing an email or physically walking to your property. 

​It’s no secret that more individuals use the internet in order to search the products and services that they are looking for. If your small business has its very own website you are gaining credibility with your potential customers. Without a website for your small business you run the risk of losing new customers to your competitors who showcase all their products, services and information on their website. If your small business already has some form of website that perhaps you or a friend quickly knocked together, a professionally designed and developed website will not only look far greater, but it will also include any necessary SEO details which will help your business become ranked by search engines such as Google. 

​Potential customers need to be able to find you, learn about you, and initiate contact with you, and they need this 24/7. The website takes care of all that. Having a website for your small business is reasonably priced and affordable.  
Internet search has largely replaced the old Yellow Pages, and web-pages can easily contain more basic information about your business than even expensive Yellow Page ads ever could. Potential customers need to be able to find you, learn about you, and initiate contact with you, and they need this 24/7. The website takes care of all that. If you compare this cost to running weekly or monthly newspaper advertisements, yellow pages ads or other forms of traditional marketing, you could be saving yourself a small fortune in the long run. Websites are certainly a more attractive and cost effective way to promote your small business, products and services.

If your small business is the supplier of multiple services or many different types of products, your website can soon become your online catalog or brochure. Using a website in order to keep your customers up to date with products and services is far easier than using traditional methods such as printing. You can also update your customers with all your latest offers, exclusive events and pretty much everything else in between! Unlike traditional print advertisements, flyers or brochures which can become quickly outdated, your website can always be updated!

​If you have a customer who needs to know a specific piece of information after your closing hours, they can simply log on to your website and grab the information they need effortlessly and with no fuss! With today’s busy lifestyles, your customers will want information on their schedule, not yours, so having a website that is kept up to date with information is a great way to keep your customers happy.

​With an eCommerce website, you no longer need to sell your products or services from your brick and mortar store. Your website can act as a secondary store which can be reached from anywhere in the world, which means individuals who aren’t local to your small business can still enjoy all of your products or services from their geographical location!