How Social Media Levels the Playing Field for Entrepreneurs

The awesome power of social media makes successful entrepreneurship a reality for anyone who aspires to reach his or her full potential through business ownership. Although something of a cliché, no credible person can deny the sea change brought about by social media platforms on the Internet in the digital age. The rise of the smartphone has magnified that power one-hundred fold, growing not only the number of users with social media access, but also increasing the time users spend on social media web sites.

The statistics are staggering! Facebook has 1.44 billion active monthly users, Twitter boasts 236 million and Google+ has surpassed 359 million. Toss in Pinterest and Instagram and you have an additional 200 million active monthly users.

Football vs. Soccer vs. Social Media

The two most-viewed television broadcasts, arguably, are the World Cup final and the Super Bowl with 910 million and 111 million viewers, respectively. As you would expect, the billion plus pairs of eyeballs on these sporting events attract serious advertising revenue for the broadcasters and considerable cost for businesses. For example, a 30 second commercial spot airing during the 2015 Super Bowl, cost $4.5 million, not to mention the associated production costs.

Clearly, big business understands the value of a captive audience and it ponies up big bucks to get in front of that audience. Startups and small to medium-sized businesses do not have the wallet for this form of old-school advertising. Often they haven’t the budget for other traditional marketing venues, such as radio, print and billboard advertising. This is especially true for startups. But what they do have is affordable access to social media.

This audience is not only accessible to entrepreneurs, startups and small to medium-sized businesses, it is available every day of the year. More importantly, unlike a Super Bowl or World Cup advert, in which the audience may or may have no interest in the product or service being offered, social media campaigns can be targeted to reach individuals who can be reasonably expected to have an interest in that product or service. Social media marketing “levels the playing field” in that it is free. Social media platforms do not charge for services. However, it does require time and effort to effectively orchestrate a cohesive strategy.

What to Avoid

The largest roadblock to successful social media marketing many entrepreneurs encounter is their own ego. While almost everyone can agree that a strong ego is an essential trait for successful entrepreneurship, there are occasions when it needs to be checked at the door. Social media marketing is about listening to your customer—telling how great you, your product or your service is … not so much.

With social media marketing the emphasis must shift from promoting products or services to helping customers meet their needs. That is defined by listening to what your customers have to say. Marketing is nuanced. It is more than simple advertising and different from selling. Social media marketing is dynamic; it requires not only listening but also responding to the needs of customers. In short, love your customers, not your product or service.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

When it’s all said and done, business has but two core functions: marketing and innovation. Through innovation the product or service is created and through marketing, it is not only sold but, refined and perfected, to meet the needs of the customer.

Social media marketing is the best vehicle to meet these goals and, statistics reveal that business generally acknowledges this to be true. Fully 93% of businesses surveyed stated that social media was included in their overall marketing strategy.

Entrepreneurs can employ a variety of strategies but as the chart below confirms, influencer marketing is the most popular.

Savvy Entrepreneurs Use Influencer Marketing

Word-of-mouth is a tried and true marketing technique. Its modern equivalent is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is word-of-mouth on steroids—and it can be cheap. The reason many entrepreneurs fail is that despite their fantastic product or unique service, they burn through their cash long before demand for their product or service materializes.

Even when cash-flow is a non-issue, too many entrepreneurs make poor choices when it comes to marketing expenditures. Either they have a “build it and they will come” mindset and spend little or nothing on marketing or, they spend too much on the wrong types of marketing. Either way, they have doomed their enterprise to failure.

Influencer marketing is cost-effective when properly executed. In many cases it costs nothing in dollars, although it can involve many hours of time and a great deal of hard work. Entrepreneurs can use influencer marketing in tandem with other strategies. For example, the freemium model and the subscription model are each quite compatible with influencer marketing. Proper execution is the key and, fortunately, there is ample information available on the Internet to guide you to a potent influencer marketing campaign.

Every entrepreneur and small business owner should understand that getting your product or service in the right buyer’s face is not accomplished by broadcasting your message to anyone within earshot, but rather by identifying likely buyers and using an influencer that relates well to those likely buyers..

One more point that cannot be stressed too strongly:

Formulate a means of measuring the results. Without a yardstick, you cannot know when to pivot. If something is not working, you need to know as soon as possible so that you can tweak your strategy.

Closing Thoughts

Highly competitive markets mean that each business transaction represents one victor and many losers. If for no other reason, to be successful, your enterprise has to be the best it can be at attracting and pleasing its customers. Increasingly, entrepreneurs and small business are turning to social media marketing to meet the challenge.

The most exciting aspect of social media marketing is that successful campaigns can be accomplished on very limited budgets, often for free, requiring no investment beyond time and hard work.

For this reason, entrepreneurs and small businesses can compete successfully with larger rivals. A level playing field has been achieved!

The equality of opportunity social media marketing offers is unparalleled in the history of enterprise and should encourage all entrepreneurs that their dreams of are now a reality.

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