If you do business on the Internet or even if you like to spend time on social media sites, then I’m sure you have seen posts and articles about how important social media is for building a business today. It’s being pounded into our head over and over that we need to be on social media with our business.
I truly do believe that and I often speak about social media myself, in my articles, and even in my live trainings.
But what I am seeing a lot more of is many of the small business entrepreneurs are simply using social media as their main marketing avenue. And with this I have to question how wise that truly is for a small business or independent business owner.
Internet marketing is unique because we are relying on websites to build our traffic and complete the sale. Whether that’s a social site or our own website; maybe a news site or an article site… No matter what it is, it’s still only one piece of the puzzle in our marketing plan.
But let’s not forget that social media is also only one part of our plan. It is simply a tool that we use to build our business and our traffic on the internet. It should not be the only tool.
So why would I say that? What’s my thinking here?
Things change and often quite quickly. Case in point. For those people that built a business only using Facebook marketing have seen a drastic change in the algorithms and a reduction in how a business page is seen today. You now have to rely on boosts and sponsored ads to market the way you used to be able to do it for free.
Another case in point is the fact that simply using social media means you are not reaching other people who use different forms of advertising for the contact. It’s easy to forget not everyone uses social media and not everyone uses the Internet on a regular basis.
So it’s important to use different forms of off-line marketing messages along with email lists so that you are able to completely reach other markets that may not have been touched by your social media marketing methods.
Of course, a lot of this may be affected by your target market. Granted, if your target market is in the 20 to 35 or 40-year-old range, then yes, social media is going to play a more important part.
However, using your website as a main point of contact, building out articles and FAQ’s for your customers, building that email list and other forms of connecting with your customers should never take a complete backseat to social media marketing.
Think outside the box and understand what would happen or could happen to your business if your main marketing method simply was not effective anymore. Could you pick up marketing through another avenue quickly? Would your business change drastically?