Small business owners across the country may now be starting to get themselves and their companies more involved in social media in general, but may not always know where they should turn. However, taking the time to understand certain demographic realities and other information about each site can be vital to growing a company through these means.
Where many companies may start their social media outreach strategies is with Facebook, and that's typically a very good idea, according to a report from Business 2 Community. The number of active Facebook users worldwide has grown 21 percent in the last year, to a total of more than 1.15 billion people. And it can be a great way to reach potential customers or clients because individuals and businesses alike, from all ages, backgrounds and areas will probably have some sort of presence on the site. This means that out of all the social media sites a company can use, this will almost certainly be the one that allows them to reach the most eyes that could potentially be interested in its products or services.
The other social networks are a little more segmented in terms of who uses them and how, of course, the report said. Twitter, for example, is gaining popularity among older people but is still used by a group that's mostly young and tech-savvy. LinkedIn, meanwhile, remains the domain mostly of older professionals who use the site to network, rather than share links or their thoughts on the news of the day. Nonetheless, both are extremely popular, with more than 500 million and 238 million users, respectively.
Other, non-traditional social networks are obviously growing in popularity as well, the report said. One many companies may not consider to be a social network is YouTube, which has more than a billion monthly unique visitors, and it might therefore be wise for some small businesses to start creating video content they can upload to this site and feature on their own. Similarly, Instagram has 130 million users, about 10 times the amount it had at the start of 2012. Further, Tumblr is now one of the 10 most-visited sites in the U.S., with more than 245 million unique visitors every month.
Many companies may not have it in the budget to increase their social media presence, but might be able to free up some money by finding more affordable small business insurance policies, including liability insurance, by shopping around for coverage that best helps them.
