The internet, particularly the social media sites have become valuable platforms as well as means to reaching customers for various local businesses, as well as national and global corporations. Any business owner should never disregard the great impact of these social media sites in gaining maximum exposure as well as enhance their brand’s visibility.

There are various reasons why you, as a business owner should take advantage of using social media to promote as well as enhance your site, your product/service, or your business brand to the public as a whole. First of all, almost everyone of us is too busy doing something that they do not have the luxury of going place to place just to see or learn about a product/service. Second, using social media is a free and inexpensive way of advertising and increasing your brand’s presence online. Third, it’s a great way to inform new and old customers about new products, improvements, news, promo’s, etc and can give your business more exposure. Fourth, it can be an easier way to gather feedbacks as well as suggestions and comments from your valued customers right from their homes, office, or anywhere they are. Fifth, it’s very accessible so you can make use of social media for business promotion wherever you are as long as you have internet.

To help you get started, here are 5 tips for you to better use social media to advertise your business, brand, product and or service:

1. Always make social media pages and or accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc for you business as this will definitely help increase your brand awareness to the market. Make sure that your page is informative, gives a great description about the business, the products or services, the location and the working hours of your store, website link, contact information, etc. Also think of the answers for the FAQ’s of your customers so that just by looking at your page, they will already have the answer to their questions.

2. Use social media to link back to your site or blog, make sure that you use social media to inform your customers and attract them to go to your site by giving them online coupons or discounts, inform them about new products, and make sure that your site also has a subscription section where they can leave their email addresses so that you can inform them more personally about what’s new in your business.

3. You should also make videos! YouTube is a great way to promote your business by making videos about your products, services or the business as a whole. Having videos can give your customers the opportunity to have a great view about what you’re selling, what you offer, and how it actually looks like. You can also use videos to inform or just make creative video ads for your business.

4. Always update your social media accounts. Always interact with your friends, followers, customers and gather feedbacks, comments, or suggestions about what they would like to see more in your products, what they don’t like, or just simply what they think about your product. Stay interested in your customers lives and they will also be interested in you.

5. Build your reputation. Social media is also a great way to improve your business reputation by giving your own insights, sharing your opinion, expertise, or even just your knowledge. Eventually, as you share valuable information, give good insights and be open to everyone’s opinion you will definitely increase your reputation to the public. Your reputation is valuable, many businesses last long because they have gained the trust and the loyalty of customers who believe in them.

There are various ways to promote your business and social media is just one great area you should consider to build your business especially if you are starting fresh. Many business owners don’t always make this a priority but in fact, it should be. Business and people are changing, changing, progressing and moving forward with technology. And to stay in the game, you need to be social!