Use of Facebook, Twitter and other sites for marketing has helped give new companies a running start and established firms a wider audience as users spread the word.
Parise invented the Bandee, a headband women wear while playing golf and other sports. She sells her product mostly on the Internet, working from home.
Her audience is big, and growing. In a year, using Facebook, she has parlayed her reach into 15,000 fans.
For small businesses such as Parise’s, social media has become a portal to success.
“It’s really important,” said Parise, 49, of Weston, Fla. “It’s just the way the market has gone.”
No question, the use of social media by businesses is booming.
According to a recent study by EMarketers, 80% of leading companies will participate in social media marketing in 2011, nearly double the number from three years ago.
And a 2011 Social Media Marketing report by SocialMediaExaminer.com found that 90% of marketers said social media was important for their business. Eighty-eight percent said it generated more business exposure, and 72% said it increased traffic to their site.
The most commonly used social media tools, the 2011 report found, are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs, in that order.
Parise didn’t have — or even want — a personal Facebook page a little over a year ago. But she knew she needed one for business.
Now, she said Facebook is the main contributor to the worldwide reach of her sales.
“Sometimes they say, ‘I saw you on Facebook,’” she said.
When Kelly Lyles launched a website in July to begin selling her invention, Tip Top Shoe Savers, she went immediately to social media to get the word out, garner feedback and drive customers to the website.
She posted on Twitter and Facebook to pique interest in her product — small shoe forms that women can place inside their pointy shoes to prevent creases and preserve the tips.
“One person putting a ‘like’ on your product or your page reaches hundreds of people because someone will see it on their page and say, ‘I like that,’ ” said Lyles, 34, of Aventura, Fla.
What’s more, Facebook gives her a weekly update of how many people visited her site and how many people “liked” her product.
And she can link to Facebook and Twitter, so that her postings go out on both.
“So, if I say, ‘Come visit Tip Top Shoe Saver at the Summer Sale,’ it goes out to Twitter,” Lyles said. “It’s cross-promoting.”
Even more-established companies that sell to other businesses can get a boost from social media.