The importance of social media when running a business

This paper is a literature review on the social media used by the businesses in reaching their clients. The beauty business is an example of businesses that have been highly influenced and gained mileage through social media. The social network in the current world has greatly defined our ways of work and living. These conversational tools put on debate and increase the length of our network as well as our conscious nourishment through accessing of information across the globe (Bøllingtoft et al, 2005). On a business perspective, social media has made it better to harness clients and generate leads. This is a crucial step which only a few businesses do it well. Hub Spot, a marketing firm conducted research and found out that Facebook users only see 2% of their followed organic pages (Bøllingtoft et al, 2005).

Most of the seen organic pages are paid advertisement. It is therefore important for any business looking to generate leads and get referrals to make a social advertisement. • Use ads Business promotion through the social networks may be consuming but once done appropriately you really realize the gains. This social advertisement has tremendously increased conversions and reduced the cost of reaching to the customers. • Interact and exchange Research done by Karkkainen shows that business communication is two-way traffic and therefore once an advertisement has been done, the clients send out comments and shares and therefore you have to engage in a dialogue (Kärkkäinen et al, 2011). Add value to your conversations with the clients, always maintain the likability factor with your clients.

Your responses should be friendly, humorous and suiting the interests of the clients. This will ensure clients remain engaged and thus loyalty, trust and credibility are developed with time. Therefore, a business with rich information, updated profiles, and content, will build strong brand authority. Positive impression is important to attract customers because it shows that your business is approachable, trustworthy and customer friendly. An entrepreneur should demonstrate expertise in the industry by having the business mission, vision, and values. This helps in establishing confidence to the potential clients (Culnan et al, 2010). • Show authenticity Customers are interested much by a shining personality brand and this is reflected by the information you share in the social media. Track your customer's questions, comments and complaints on social media, rapidly respond to the possible concerns and questions, be positive and helpful, listen to the customer's criticism and resolve the conversations more specifically as private messages.

• Grow affordably Most businesses are not in a position to afford huge marketing costs because of their economic size (Lepoutre et al 2003). According to Lapoutre research work, social advertisements are cost effective and most businesses are getting much value from these channels. The advertisement of business via ads on social channels such as Instagram and Facebook is an opportunity for all businesses regardless of its budget or size. Understand your goals and who you want to reach in developing ads campaign. • It promotes your SEO rankings The social media forums enable business owners to increase their content’s visibility. This is because the social media business forum acts as a second residence for your products or services. Moreover, they become shareable to other people.

The content of your services or products becomes shareable and thus increasing the probability of creating quality backlinks. This is as a result of your content being reachable. Social media (owned channel). According to Dinter You do not own the social network, but you possess your own real estate on it. Your business profile is viewed as an independent forum. The channel is free to express yourself and share your business functions (Dinter et al 2012). Social media (earned channel). This results in increased sales of the business products and services and thus realizing its mission and vision. The current research done on how social media is benefiting the business has a shortage of explanation of how the business is affected by losing direct contact to their clients.