As time rushes past, we are witnessing the world of digital marketing skyrocket into one of the most beneficial assets to a business’s success. The realm of social media has grown exponentially in the last 10 years and is now one of the most fruitful options a business can employ in the marketing world. The key is knowing where to spend your time online. Here are six reasons why your business needs to be on social media.

1. To Find Your Customers

An enormous perk in the social media world is the ability to reach people genuinely interested in your business’s services. However, you must find your audience first. It is important to analyze all social media platforms to pinpoint where people are talking about your industry and using keywords. Once you have located your audience, you need to join the conversation. Social media is an opportunity to swim in a sea filled with potential customers.

2. Provide Customer Service

Social media has become a preferred method for customers to speak with a company, especially when something has gone wrong. With this being said, it is important for any businesses to be active on social media. Why? Because your customers sure are. Studies show that 78% of customers are influenced by a business’s social media posts – this means that at least 78% of your customer base is on social media. Engage with them!

3. Build Your Brand

Going along with customer service, brand building in another fantastic opportunity for a business in the social media world. Word of mouth can be the best brand building tactic for a business, and social media is just that – on a much larger scale. Social media can ultimately be an outlet for your business to create a trustworthy image behind its brand to ensure you are the number one choice for your customers.

4. Competition

Social media’s popularity is granting small businesses the ability to compete with large, established corporations. This is huge. In the past, facing large corporations’ marketing budgets was seemingly impossible. Certain social media sites, such as Twitter, allow you to listen to your competition. The best part is they don’t even know that you are watching their activities online! Social media is now granting small businesses an opening to get themselves in front of the same audience.

5. Inbound Marketing

Due to social media’s prevalence, the world of inbound marketing has grown increasingly in the past few years. Businesses have always had the ability to create meaningful content for their websites, but now your business has the ability to share it to a crowd of content-hungry readers.  Providing informational content to your customers is an excellent strategy to create brand loyalty in today’s business world.

6. It’s Cheap

That’s it. Social media can be one of the most affordable – even free – forms of marketing and customer service in today’s business world. There is no reason why a business should not be on social media.

Overall, social media has a growing importance in the success of small businesses throughout the world. It’s time to share best practices. What are some tactics your business employs using social media marketing?

Taylor Tomita is a creative writer  residing in Boise, Idaho. Taylor loves writing about marketing and social media. Taylor also plays in the best band of all time, Stepbrothers. Follow him on Twitter: @Trvshlvrd_RR.