When you’re running a small business, every dollar you spend on marketing has to have a positive impact on your bottom line. You don’t have a budget of several thousand to “play” with as you figure out the right strategies for growing your business. You need to be able to rely on solutions that will not only be effective but also be easy to maintain on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. That’s why leveraging social media is one of the best ways to get the word out about your products and services. Most social media sites are free and many of the other tools associated with managing your accounts are either free or very reasonably priced.

There’s virtually no other form of marketing that allows you this type of widespread reach for zero to little cost. Creating an email marketing campaign, using pay per click ads or having articles created and distributed all cost money – money that your small business might not have.

In contrasts, all the essential steps to effective marketing on social media are free.

The steps are:

• Establishing your online profiles.
• Spending time making regular status updates. 
•  Sharing tips, resources and information that add value to your audience
•  Interacting with potential customers and past customers.
• Promoting your solutions.
• Spreading the word on other resources that may be helpful to your target market.

All of these tasks are not only free – but they help you build a relationship with your ideal clients. Instead of just being a faceless, impersonal business you become a company that cares, which can make all of the difference in your ability to connect with your market and build your brand.

For the time and low cost spent, social media has a very high return on investment (ROI). Case in point, in 2008 only 12% of small businesses used social media. In 2009, it doubled to 24% and statistics for 2010 showed a nearly 100% increase again. More and more small businesses are getting involved in social media, which means that more and more consumers are going to be looking at these profiles when making purchasing decisions.

No matter what industry you’re in – your target market is on social media. If you don’t know where to start, focus on the “Big Three” – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Using Postling makes it easy to coordinate your posts to all three, which can save you time and valuable marketing dollars while significantly expanding your reach on social media. 

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Sydni Craig-Hart, The Smart Simple Marketing Coach, is founder of SmartSimpleMarketing.com. She is known for teaching her clients step-by-step how to fill their practice with ideal clients and create more money in their business. Check out www.SmartSimpleMarketing.com for your free marketing tools and to schedule your own “Profit Breakthrough” session with Sydni!