Small and medium enterprises have grown to be a thriving and revitalizing part of the Indian economy. According to CRISIL’s data from October 2020, 53% of SMEs have adopted digital sales platforms. Due to increased demand and global competition, every organization is pressured to exceed customer expectations and earn satisfaction. SMEs must, without a doubt, improve production, cost, quality, staff skills, and technical abilities. Social media has become a popular choice among SMEs in recent years due to its several benefits, including lead generation, cost-effectiveness, increased web traffic, and communication.
The ability to communicate with potential clients is the key benefit of SMEs adopting social media. Social media is widely known to be easy to use and manage and inexpensive, and technically straightforward. SMEs utilize it as a combination of tactical elements to achieve greater performance, such as blogs, discussions, photo and video sharing, social media websites, virtual communities, product or service reviews, and so on. Many studies have found that social media usage positively impacts SMEs’ customer-facing activities and sales.
In the digital marketing era, social media is a significant element. In 2021, 79% of SMEs intend to advertise on digital platforms, and 60% want to advertise on numerous channels, according to the survey conducted by The Media Ant. Almost all industries have leveraged social media to expand their online presence, owing to the primary concern of establishing their online brand reputation.
Qualitative and quantitative perspectives can be used to assess the performance of SMEs. Sales, customer interactions, and business performance can all be used to demonstrate the impact of social media usage by SMEs. In many aspects, SMEs have achieved positive outcomes in terms of communication with customers. Social media adoption offers substantial benefits to all business categories, from finding potential customers to providing them with product or service information, responding to their concerns proactively, and promoting positive coordination with other entrepreneurs.
When SMEs strive to gain their business performance, social media has allowed them to build deeper relationships with their consumers and learn more about their potential customers to generate leads and sales. Customer loyalty can also be improved by responding to and rewarding brand followers and developing a virtual community. It also reduces marketing costs and increases visibility. In recent years, SME employees have been trained to use social media effectively to fulfil customer needs and brand standards. These initiatives have resulted in a significant increase in revenue, which has aided the business’s success.
All companies have seen a significant rise in sales due to their use of social media. Once again, it has connected user engagement by providing a space for customers to share their purchasing journeys and encouraging them to provide feedback online. Using sponsored advertisements on numerous social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and others is the finest social media approach to increasing sales.
Based in New Delhi, DFM Foods is a leading manufacturer of packaged foods, with some of the most popular products, including Natkhat wheat puffs and CRAX Namkeens. DFM Foods adopted social media advertising and even market research to promote their products, and they intend to continue using this digital marketing strategy in the long term. Compared to the previous year, the company’s revenue from business operations increased by 3.17% to Rs 52,406 lakhs in the fiscal year 2020-21.
The digital marketing strategy for SMEs should be customized to their business model to achieve growth and profit. Staying active on social media and providing relevant content generates in-store traffic, word-of-mouth referrals, website views, and, ultimately, leads that become customers. SMEs should use social media effectively to reap all the benefits that make their business profitable. Social media will show the extraordinary results that SMEs want to accomplish, depending on the type of business and focussed team engagement toward the strategies employed.
