It needs no telling how big social media is, especially in this 21st century. Social media has been in existence for more than over a decade and it has grown faster than the internet itself.

With sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter which launched in early 2000s, 2004 and 2006 respectively, social media birthed a completely innovative means for people to communicate and interact with each other regardless of their respective location.

According to Axel Schultze, Founder and CEO of Silicon Valley based venture; BlueRoads; he defined social media as “the collection of tools and online spaces available to help individuals and businesses to accelerate their information and communication needs”.

If I were to define it, I’ll say social media is a community of people who have access to the internet who can lend their voice to social causes, communicate and relate with people of diverse race, religion and belief.

Speaking of definitions, Facebook has remained the foremost social media platform, with a record of over 1.39 billion people logging on every month. Did youknow there are also a whopping 328 million monthly active users on Twitter? Well, now you know.

This is a detailed chart on how many millions of people visited the listed social media platforms in the last month.

There are thousands of social media networks but for the sake of this post, we’re just going to stick with the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Figure 1 Number of people using social media

If you are an entrepreneur and you are not actively pushing your business with any of the aforementioned platforms, I’m sure you could learn a thing or two on how to maximize this goldmine called social media.

In the post, I will share some of the benefits of social media and how to maximize them to get excellent results in your business.

Let’s get on with it!

Why social media for your business success?

1. It increases your brand recognition

Having a strong social media presence increases your chances of getting noticed by prospective customers. Take for instance, I want to buy a canon camera and I use Google to check for online stores or outlets that sell this gadget. If a store that has a good online presence has the exact camera I’m looking for, it will surely pop up. I tried it, here’s the result.



In the process of connecting with your customers, it augments the odds of retaining them because they can relate with the personality behind the account.

2. It boosts your SEO

One of the major advantages of social media for businesses is utilizing it to boost your website traffic. Social media helps direct people to your website hence increasing the search engine optimization. With an active follower base, it increases your search on the internet when your users retweet, engage or share your posts across their social platforms.

3. It helps generate testimonials/feedbacks from your customer

Every day on social media, there are about 4.5 billion likes on Facebook, 500 million tweets on Twitter and about 52 million pictures are uploaded on Instagram every day. With this data, it will be easier to get relevant information from customers to make brilliant business decision; how to serve them better, how they feel about your brand etc. Through your social media presence, you can get honest feedbacks from your customers.

Sometime ago, I bought some accessories from a friend so she requested for a testimonial about the product I purchased she then posted it on Instagram. When other customers visit her page and see this testimonial, they will be motivated to buy from her and this will also increase her conversion rate.

4. It helps boost your awareness of competitors

Social media helps you ‘monitor’ your competitors; you know what they are up to, the next business steps they are taking, you will be well-informed about them. This helps you make calculated business decisions to stay way ahead of them in business.

How can this be achieved? You can use Google alerts (there are tons of social media monitors) to track your competitors. All you need do is type in the industry keywords and company names and products; your email address. And voila! You’ll receive every information about your competitors in your mail. With this, you can strategically plan towards increasing the offer the competitors might be missing out on their part.


Having discussed the benefits of social media for businesses, how do you maximize social media for your business? Let’s find out:

Figure out your target customers: This is the first action before venturing into social media marketing. It is salient that you figure out your target customers, their demographic, behaviour and reaction.
Create good content: For any social media post to succeed, the content has to be very catchy, interactive and engaging. If it lacks this simple things, it will be difficult to get them talking about the products or service you pushed. This also includes using good images, crafting good headlines/captions that would grasp the reader’s attention.
Engage your customers You remember the keep the change bae saga that happened on Twitter right? How Wema bank, First bank and other brands were able to jump on it and pulled good marketing stunts out of it? That’s one of the importances of social media.
Build a community: Before you begin to push your products or services on social media, build a community where people can engage and relate with the person behind the brand personally. When that first stage is complete, then you proceed to drive your products or services.

There is a blog I follow consistently –Kachitee.com, she had built a community where people knows and relate with her on a personal level. Certainly if she decides to venture into any business at any time, she would thrive because of the community she had built.

In essence, one can conclude that social media cannot be overrated and its impact on business, whether large or small cannot be overemphasized. So if your business isn’t on social media, make sure to get on that bus fast!

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mynd44

https://discovery.insidify.com/using-facebook-instagram-twitter-to-grow-your-small-business-in-nigeria

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