When you’re a shop, restaurant, or bar that operates in a purely physical space (ie, in the “real world”), it can be difficult to see the benefit of social media to your business. However, with 90% of adults owning a smartphone* and around 31.2 million Facebook users in the UK alone**, if you’re not online, you could really be missing out! So where do you start?
Facebook:
Facebook is for more than just baby scans, Minion pictures and people over sharing about their day, in fact is it currently home to over 40 million small business pages***. A Facebook ‘Like’ page is pretty easy to set up, and can be updated via your mobile.Unfortunately, Facebook can be pretty stingy when it comes to showing business posts on timelines, so it’s a good idea to have something sharable, or that asks people to comment in order to drive engagement.
Facebook is a great platform to share competitions, show special offers and get feedback from your customers.
Twitter:
Twitter is a good way of interacting with customers, and potential customers, in short 140-character bursts. People can search hashtags such as #ManchesterCafe or #BestDinnerEver and discover new places – make sure you’re one of them! Remain active, Retweet relevant and interesting information and shout about your product.
Instagram:
As this is a photo-based platform, it’s ideal for any business with a photogenic product! Instagram is known for people taking pictures of delicious looking dishes, so if that is something you know you’re good at, get snapping!
It may seem like a lot of extra work but there are some great apps to help you along the way, such as Buffer or Hootsuite for queueing up posts in advance. Chances are, somewhere amongst your staff is someone who’s handy with the internet and willing to help you manage your social media.
Overall, the benefits seem to outweigh the efforts involved and chances are, your business, and sales, will grow as a result!
Why not follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Printway.Ltd?fref=ts
& Twitter: @Printway_ltd We are going to start being more active on our social media, so make sure you give us a follow to get our special offers first!
*http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/12/80-of-all-online-adults-now-own-a-smartphone-less-than-10-use-wearables/
**http://www.statista.com/statistics/271349/facebook-users-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
***http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/facebook-page-statistics/2/