If you are in business, then you are marketing your business. All business owners are (or should be) searching for the best or most important ways to market themselves, their products or their services. And of course, cost is always a factor. We understand that we have to spend money to make money, but we want to save money in the process.

I’ve been involved in social media marketing since before the concept was officially known as social media marketing. And this article is just my opinion on the matter – I would love to hear what you think.

Now, let’s get to the point. Why is social media one of the most important marketing tools?

Social media gives you a more direct path of contact between you and your market. Having a strong social network allows you to communicate effectively with existing and potential users. More “traditional” marketing tools allows for pretty much one-way communication, but with social media you can directly interact with your client base. One of the most important aspects of using social media as a marketing platform is the fact that you are able to access a massive market that would otherwise be inaccessible through traditional media (unless equally insane amounts of money are spent). Social media makes connecting with customers easy.

Now, even today, I am exasperated to hear clients say: “But I don’t use facebook (or twitter or google+ or….). I cannot see how it can be of value to my business to have a social media presence.” And my answer is: If you aren’t using social media yet, you’re missing out on a vast, untapped group of potential customers. These days, almost everyone is plugged in and connected online – Facebook has more than 900 million active users and Twitter has almost 300 million. Is this really a user base that you can afford to disregard?

What can social media do for your company?

Firstly, by actively using social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Pinterest, etc you can raise awareness of your company to a very large community. Just like placing a newspaper, radio or television advertisement, social media is an easy way to get your company name in front of peoples eyes.

Secondly, social networking connects your with a large chunk of active online users and can generate leads of all kinds for most businesses. You can tie awareness in with promotions and competitions, and run a very effective online campaign which can only benefit your business.

Once you’ve established your network, it doesn’t stay there. You constantly add new people, and you build relationships with your existing followers. Once you’ve established a connection or formed a relationship it is crucial that you maintain the correct impression. Relationships leads to sales.

Social media also allows you to improve your customers service. Because of direct communication, social media allows you to interact with potentially disgruntled customers and sort out any problems/issues that may exist. Social media also allows your happy customers to publicly share how satisfied they are doing business with you. This gives a whole new meaning to the concept “Word of Mouth”.

There are amazing tracking/monitoring tools available which allows you to access a valuable range of data about how people found you, who they are, how they came to view your website/social page, etc. With this info, you can work out the most effective ways to increase your social media network, adjust your campaign and capture your market.

In short, social media is a whole different way of looking at promoting your business. And if you look at how some of the larger brands embrace their ongoing social media campaigns, it can definately work for your business too.