We love nothing more than spending our days helping small businesses unlock their potential and make easy work of their goals via social media.
Since social media started rising to prominence as a marketing tool for business, the impact it has had on small businesses have been many and plentiful. We’ve loved seeing how it’s changed the game for small businesses and today we’re going to share those experiences with you!
Leveling the playing field
If you’re asking how social media has impacted small businesses, we’ll have to start with probably the biggest game changer of them all…
Before old mate Mark Zuckerberg gave us an accessible and affordable marketing platform to play with, it was big businesses [and even bigger budgets] taking up all the air time and space. As a small business you were so limited in how far and wide you could reach and service, the big players stayed that way.
We’re so glad to be working within a landscape where past success and money alone doesn’t guarantee you future success. The businesses offering the best product, who connect with their target market and who show up for their folks will be the ones who reign supreme.
Even with a small budget, the sky’s the limit if you’re smart with how you use it. Just look at the many digitally grown beauty brands that connected with their customers on social, built their communities and were able to show up to market with what their consumers were actually wanting [oh hey Glossier!]. [Also, can you come to Aus soon pretty please?!].
It’s now the big brands trying to play catch up and we don’t just mean in their content and digital strategy, we mean with their product offerings as well.
What often comes along with big budgets is lots of red tape, bureaucracy and hoops to jump through. Small businesses often have a more ‘roll with the punches’ kind of vibe making them agile and able to roll with the needs of the latest trends.
Allowing direct contact with your people
What people have always loved about small businesses is connecting on a human level with the people behind them.
It’s why someone would chose to enter a locally owned boutique rather than visit a high street staple. Not only are the products going to be uniquely curated, the people you meet in the store are likely to have a deeper connection to the business, and it shows.
Imagine creating an experience that brings people back to that store again and again and doing it at scale 🤩. That’s what social media has made possible, and that’s one of the biggest affects it’s had on small businesses.
Some people may argue that digital platforms remove some of the human magic, but I disagree. My experience is it’s when you show up as your most human and authentic self on socials that’s where good stuff starts to happen and the results start to follow.
There is literally a niche for everything on the internet, opening up so many possibilities for small businesses to thrive in their very unique offerings when they connect with their audience and build their community effectively.
You no longer need to target the masses and hope that you’ll grab your folks’ attention in the process. With social media you can seek them out with sophisticated targeting and maybe a little bit of virality helped by the algorithm if you’re lucky!
If you’re really good at what you do and the audiece start to feel affinity with you and your biz, they’ll keep them engaging with you and extend that customer journey far beyond a purchase or enquiry.
Being a small business can be such an advantage on socials. People are looking for connection, and when you find it the possibilities are pretty darn exciting if you ask me!
Rewarding originality and creativity
No big content budgets either? No worries!
Another way social media affects small businesses is to make content marketing a whole lot more accessible [and fun if you ask me!].
Billboards, TVC, print ads, OOH, they all needed some pretty fancy production to create and execute but social has really lowered the bar on what’s needed for content to succeed and we love it.
We’ve seen SO many small businesses out there carving out a special spot on the internet for themselves and blowing us all away with their growth as a result.
Now that TikTok is well and truly here to stay we’ll see this more and more the power of virality to grow a business within days because they’re bringing something fresh, engaging and meaningful to the party.
We know video can be scary for some [I’m right ther with you TBH] but when you lose the expectations of what your content needs to be and lean in to what you want it to be, that’s where you’ll discover how much social media rewards those who stand out for being themselves.
Small business no more …
Thanks to the affects social media has had on small businesses, just because the beginnings may be humble doesn’t mean that they’ll stay that way.
We’ve seen some of our clients go from teams of one storing inventory in their house to needing office spaces, warehouses and entire teams to service their demand and sales.
When we get all digi-geeky and excited about the powers of social media it’s because we’ve seen first hand so many times just how much is possible when you lean in to all that it offers for business.
Not to toot our own horns but look no further than TDP. When I started 5 years ago, I was the third full time staff in the business and now look at us! We’ve practiced what we preached on social and it’s opened so many opportunities for us. It’s also only just the beginning [watch this space 😉].
Big, lofty, out-of-box-dreams for your small biz? Social media is 100% the place for you! 🙌
Hopefully by this point you’re feeling as excited by the potential of social media for small businesses as we are and raring to go in updating your social strategy. We’d love to help you along the way, whether it’s a little bit of a training refresh, collaborating with you or getting our strategy hats on together.
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