If you want your small business to be seen, heard, known, and bought from, then you’re going to need to find a way to be actively involved full-time with social media marketing. Jennifer Couture knows; she’s been utilizing the amazing tool for her cosmetology ventures for years now, and with big results. The fact remains, that social media is a veritable powerhouse. It provides small businesses with the ability to market like a big corporation at the cost of being almost free, notes Jennifer Couture, aside from the time spent on it.
Look At the Resource Analytically
First, social media marketing has an amazingly wide reach. No question about it, social media penetration can be intensive and exponential, and it can spread quickly. In fact, marketing-wise, social media is probably today more powerful in reach and speed than television, radio or even static Internet resources, in Jennifer Couture’s opinion. If an entire country’s government can be influenced by the tool, imagine what it can do for a business that isn’t as political, no pun intended.
Even the Cost-Grinches Will Smile Big
Second, as mentioned earlier, social media is almost no cost. Aside from the time spent on it, the tool can be used by anyone for an extremely low expense. Costs only start expanding if one uses click advertising or hires additional help to maintain a presence instead of being directly hands-on, which is not a bad idea once things get rolling. In fact, Jennifer Couture often advises startups in cosmetology to bring in professional help at first to get things set up correctly.
When You’re Happy With a Broken Record Repeating
Third, social media audiences can be leveraged again and again. The return and repeat reaction via social media, allows a business to generate constant cycling of attention and, ultimately, calls to action with sales and financial activity. Jennifer Couture notes the return when cyclical marketing is taken into account can be as much as 1,000 to 10,000% ROI on any cost effort put into the tool. Practically no other marketing tool available to small businesses even comes close to this kind of business performance.
Ask the Hard Questions for Your Business
So the real question Jennifer Couture and others ask every startup or small business they come across is, why aren’t you using social media marketing already? Couture knows the excuses: it takes time, it’s complicated, it’s not my generation, etc. However, when a business owner simply looks at the tool from a cost/benefit perspective, not using social media is a fundamental mistake, especially in today’s business world where small businesses are more often found by mobile search and viral sharing than anything else. As Jennifer Couture often jokes, nobody is walking through the yellow pages anymore. They’re flying first class through the Internet.