Social media has been through a lot in the last two years. It’s been overly-hyped, under-appreciated, been the brunt of questionable claims regarding its value, had its ROI fondled like a rubix cube, turned-over, pushed, pulled, examined, leveraged, utilized with success and utilized with epic failure.

It’s been a bit of a theme park really.

A lot of good has come out of sound social media strategies for many businesses and while the entire process of getting your business involved in social media isn’t completely free, it can be pretty cheap. Anyone peddling it as an expensive magic potion should be disregarded. It’s a cost-effective tool that nestles snugly into your great big craftsman toolbox out back.

Curious about how social media can help your business, even in the smallest way? Here are a few quick tips on how a small business owner can gain traction with social media marketing.

Engagement

Where traditional marketing tends to be very passive and disconnected, social media marketing allows you to directly engage not only your customers but your vendors and employees as well. You have access to a brand new level of communication where you can get and deliver feedback quickly.

Communication is never a bad thing.

Relationships

Social media is all about relationships. That’s the whole concept behind social networks is establishing relationships to engage people. You can connect to and forms bonds with people and organizations you never knew existed with the potential of gaining insight and information to help your business thrive. From relationship building comes trust and credibility, and your customers like to do business with people they trust.

On Target

You’ll be able to find and directly target the people you want to market to. You can stop wasting a lot of ad budget on marketing campaigns that blanket your local area or the web. That never works. Social media is an opportunity to narrow your focus and increase the return on your investment. Not sure about that? Try selling a hockey stick to someone who doesn’t have any interest in hockey. Then go find a group in Facebook that deals with Hockey enthusiasts and try to sell it. Enough said.

Reputation Management

Every business will inevitably face criticism and be questioned in a public forum. How you respond to criticism can have a very profound impact on future business. Social media allows you to respond quickly so that you can turn a negative situation into one with a positive outcome. Consider the potential of turning an unhappy customer into an evangelist by taking care of their issue.

Education

Increasing your socialization with customers and others within your market helps open your eyes and learn more about what you’re doing. You can learn a lot about who you are and how you operate your business.

This is just scratching the surface of the benefits of social media marketing. When you mingle this with other forms such as content marketing you’re broadening your reach and opening your online presence up to a lot of potential growth.

With that said, the results are different for every business, and not every network should be used by every business. Social media marketing is part of a larger strategic marketing plan and you have to ask yourself some serious questions before moving forward:

-  Which network (or networks) will provide the most engagement for me

- Do I have a strategy for building relationships?

- How much time can I spend on relationship building

-  Who is my consumer? Do I have enough information to make a buyer persona?

- What does my reputation look like now?

- How do I protect my reputation… or fix it?

- What do I want to get from social media marketing

Never be fearful of moving forward even if you don’t know what to expect. That’s where research comes into play, and information gained through trial and error. Remember, it’s better to do something than nothing at all.