3 Ways Businesses are using Social Media to Save Money

Small businesses all have the same problem these days. How can they save more money? Social media is one important way that businesses are saving money while still delivering value.

Whether being used for community building, customer service, product marketing, or staying organized and communicating as a team, one common theme can be found of the use of social media: cost savings.

Social media has given small businesses the ability to market themselves in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before. It takes a small time commitment, but the overall costs are minimal. This allows more companies to allocate resources to other parts of their business.

Here are three ways businesses are using social media for results.

1. Customer Service

One of the most useful ways that companies are employing social media is for customer service. These days, people expect to be able to post issues directly to Twitter and obtain a real-time response. This instantaneous access to customers is invaluable to companies.

One of the tools being used to manage their customer-focused social media efforts is Hootsuite, which has decreased the amount of time necessary to look after their Twitter and Facebook accounts by allowing both networks to be used at the same time. HootSuite is effective and can cut down time for an administrator

“Twitter has become the launching point for many of our internal processes” says Todd Barr, Vice President of Marketing at Pnonebooth. “We have multiple examples of responding to an issue on Twitter within a couple of minutes and then being on the phone with them within ten minutes. A tweet actually starts an internal process where we pull in the appropriate parties, get our information together, and reach out to the customer.”

“All of our other social media uses are extremely important, but Twitter is actually helping to create a culture change. We’re able to quickly assemble the correct folks to improve life for the customer. Internally, this begins to shed light on the power of social media and the team of folks who want to be involved is gradually expanding” states Todd Barr.

2. Building Community

Companies try to utilize social media for building a community of customer evangelists. Relying on social media efforts to build a community involves providing support, invites, encouragement and general engagement through Twitter. Facebook pages and Twitter accounts should be used to actively engage people. It allows a business to organically build relationships and influence key people within a particular industry.

One of the most often overlooked aspects of social media is building relationships offline. It is important for startups to take online networking to the next level and go out and talk to customers in person.

3. Product Marketing

Using social media for marketing is another cost-saving no-brainer for companies. Social media levels the playing field like never before. It has never been easier to be more in touch with your customers or market. Traditional marketing promotes messages to unwitting audiences. Social media marketing seeks interested people who want to hear from a company with compelling content, products and conversations.
Companies using social media for marketing need to be in it for the long haul. The use of social media to market yourself is a commitment. You have to put value in being authentic, respectful and responsive.

“Concentrate on the value you’re providing for others through these tools,” said Dmitry Dragilev, Marketing Lead at ZURB. “The tools are just another communication medium. What value are you providing for them through Social Media? Try to imagine yourself in their shoes –- would you be interested? Imagine you’re standing with strangers in an airport -– what would you say to them to get their attention and get them excited about what you’re doing?”

Social media sites come and go, but the idea of social media will remain and is in fact growing. With the help of social media marketing service your company will benefit from brand awareness to a better ranking on the search engine page results, visit Blind Acre Media for more information