When a small business or start-up is looking to survive and grow, it can be difficult to attract and sign new clients and customers. After all, a new company needs to market itself (as a quality choice compared to the competition) along with its products and/or services. Social media is one of the best ways to achieve these goals.
First, social networks have greatly leveled the playing field for this particular medium of marketing. A properly-constructed tweet - through the use of "hashtags" and similar methods - sent by an organization of smaller size has nearly the same potential to reach the target market as one published by a larger competitor. If a start-up creates a Facebook page and gains enough "likes," it can choose a keyword-based Facebook URL to help with search-engine rankings. If the start-up's large competitors neglected to do the same, then the new firm will already surpass them in at least one marketing area.
Second, social media is a method in which to capitalize on "inbound marketing" - the process of making prospects come to you rather than vice versa through "outbound" types of marketing including T.V. commercials and unsolicited direct mail. While the large behemoths against whom small businesses compete spend (and many times waste) thousands of dollars or more on marketing methods that are increasingly less-effective, a start-up can gain leads for a fraction of the price via a strategic social-media campaign. However, it should be noted that while Facebook and Twitter are free, the amount of time needed to manage these accounts is a cost that must be considered.
Third, publishing and maintaining a blog can bring added value to customers and potential customers by providing information that is relevant to your audiences. A blog also has added benefits to your website as a whole -- Google loves blogs, and they often rank highly in search results. In addition, the more that a firm publishes blog posts, the more sales it will generally have - along with the branding that comes from being a thought leader in one's industry. Creating and using a Wordpress blog, for example, is free unless you want to have advanced items like one's own domain and web host. Whether you are located here in the Philadelphia region or elsewhere and whether you are starting a business in law, finance, high-tech or another industry, social media and blogging in many cases make a lot of sense: they are low-cost and effective methods to gain new business.
In this context, American Executive Centers is proud to announce our new Facebook fan page and Twitter account. In our own case, we aim to use our social media communities for the above purposes in addition to serving as a conduit through which our clients can network and receive the latest information to help their businesses expand while cutting costs at the same time. We encourage everyone to "like" and "follow" us today!