Unlike big brands, small and medium-sized businesses don’t have the luxury of relying on their names to drive sales and establish customer loyalty. As a result, you need to work harder to promote your businesses.
Luckily, technology makes these business promotions possible by building a brand and growing a social media presence. Here are 5 social media tips for small business to help you grow your audience.
1. Have a Goal for your Campaign
It’s easy to register your business name on social media sites and start posting things relevant to your trade. Adding high-quality pictures along with catchy descriptions can help entice consumers. But even well-crafted social media content isn’t as useful as it could be without a clear direction.
Before you start signing up for social media sites, establish your campaign goals and objectives. Ask yourself: What is the main purpose of this campaign? What are the things you want to achieve? How does it benefit your small business? Social networks are effective for increasing brand awareness and generating new leads, and social media marketing provides a convenient avenue for customer service while strengthening client engagement.
- Your goals should be S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
- You can have more than one goal but make sure to identify your top priorities.
- Use tools to measure your results such as followers, shares, likes, comments, etc.
2. Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
There are lots of social media networking sites to choose from, but as a small business owner, remember that selecting the right platform is crucial for the success of your campaign. Just because certain networks are popular doesn’t mean they represent the objectives and goals of your business — or even reach your customer base.
Always choose a social media networking site that is business friendly. They should be well established with a high volume of users in your demographic to reach your target audience. Select a social media platform that allows you to showcase new products or services, build a following, and serve as an extension of customer service. Below are some of the most popular platforms.
- Facebook – the most popular social media site with more than 2.2 billion monthly active users worldwide. Businesses can create a Facebook page dedicated to selling products or services.
- Instagram – a social media platform that focuses on visual content rather than contextual posts. Used primarily for promoting products and services via aesthetically-pleasing photos.
- Twitter – quick and easy to use, small businesses can utilize Twitter to instantly share latest products, brand contests, time-limited discounts, quick updates and new promotional offers as well as new blog posts or web content.
- Pinterest – acts as an online scrapbook with various boards and collections to choose from. Pinterest helps generate leads and drives traffic by redirecting customers and prospective customers back to your website.
3. Know and Connect with your Customers
To make the most of these social media tips for small business, it’s important to know your customers in order to connect with them as much as possible. With customer data, you are able to offer products and services that will keep them interested. Gather the data available for things like as age, gender, location, average income, and other sites they are following to turn potential customers into future buyers.
Connecting with your customers is equally important. Social media serves as the modern version of face-to-face conversation in today’s digital world, and not responding to comments and queries will impact the perceived responsiveness of your business.
If you are not comfortable using social media to connect with clients, it may be best to delegate to someone within your business to do so or hire a social media manager.
- Define your goals and set your expectations when hiring someone to handle media accounts.
- If your business lacks financial resources, consider hiring an intern or part-time media person.
- Younger employees are usually knowledgeable on social media, so give weight to their suggestions.
4. Less is often more
Creating and sharing a post about a special offer or a new product is one proven social media strategy to keep your business on the radar. It’s easy to create a basic post but crafting compelling and effective content can be more challenging. Consumers can easily identify content with no value, so it’s better to share fewer posts with greater value than sharing content every single day with no real benefit to your readers.
Your posts should attract, engage, and nurture your clients. Be sure to remember the Pareto Principle – social content shouldn’t be promoting yourself, it’s all about adding value for your audience. When writing social media content, always:
- Create a post that will provoke or initiate a response from your readers.
- Capture their attention by sharing industry info, warning messages, or secret revelations.
- Focus on the quality of your content rather than the number of words.
- If writing isn’t your forte, don’t force it but consider hiring an expert to help you out.
5. Choose the Right Tools
Managing social media accounts is time-consuming, so the last of our social media tips for small business includes tools you can use to make life easier. As a small business owner, you have lots of responsibilities and may not have much time to dedicate to social media.
Use effective tools that will help streamline your social media marketing efforts. Choose a program that is easy to use and with automation features so you don’t have to spend as much time handling multiple social media accounts.
HootSuite is an online social media management solution that offers:
- Platform integration and various applications for ease of use.
- Automatic scheduling of up to 350 social media posts at once.
- Robust client engagement with social media monitoring tools for analytics.
Buffer offers the convenience of managing all media accounts in one simple dashboard:
- Automatically publish posts whenever and wherever you need.
- Browser extension and mobile apps for on-the-go management.
- Metrics for how your content is performing with efficient analytics tools.