Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Social media marketing was an optional thing small businesses could use to boost their game, but it wasn’t necessary for ultimate success.
After all, small businesses usually have an established customer base that knows who they are and where to find them. Therefore, social media marketing won’t benefit them.
This is a mentality that needs to be changed. Using social media to market your small business will help you acquire new customers and get more money from existing customers.
Failing to establish an effective social media presence can be bad for your business in the long run. How do you retain your loyal customers? What happens when not having a social media presence catches up to you down the road?
Don’t wait until the time runs out. Keep up with the latest social media trends and apply them to your small business.
If you don’t know how to get started with social media or digital marketing in general, here are some tips for you.
Use Multiple Platforms
When talking to small business owners about social media profiles, the typical response is something like:
“We have a Facebook page.”
That’s a great starting point, and you’re definitely headed in the right direction if this is your case. But it’s not good enough.
Facebook alone won’t help you reach your true reach potential. Establishing a presence on as many social media platforms as possible is the way to go.
Don’t get me wrong: Facebook marketing leads the way for small businesses when it comes to social media marketing platforms.
According to a Clutch report from 2018, 86% of small businesses use Facebook as their primary social media channel. However, less than half of those small businesses use Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter as marketing tools.
So after creating a Facebook page, determine which other channels are suitable for your marketing strategies.
Is your primary target audience Gen Z? Then advertising through Snapchat and TikTok might be the move. Determine which platform is the best for your social media engagement.
Are your products or services made for millennial consumption? Twitter or Instagram marketing might prove more effective.
YouTube has a highly polished advertising system. You only pay for ads that are viewed for more than 30 seconds or are actually being interacted with, making YouTube marketing cost-effective.
Besides, video content or ads you upload to YouTube can be shared on other social media channels, giving you an excuse to post all over your social media channels.
Use your multiple channel network to expand your reach and target your audience more effectively.
Have Clear Marketing Goals
So you’re ready to start posting content on social media. Cool. What type of content are you posting?
“…”
No clue? That’s alright.
Before doing anything else, you need to define your marketing goals. Usually, small businesses want to accomplish one of the following:
- Generate leads
- Customer engagement
- Build brand awareness
- Directly drive sales
These are all excellent reasons, but it doesn’t mean these are the only ones available. Define what YOU want to do through managing your social media marketing.
For example, you may want to use your social media to create new communication channels for your customer service.
Whatever your goal is, make sure you lay it out. Once you decide the purpose behind your social media marketing campaign, coming up with content to post should be a lot easier.
Speaking of content…
Be consistent. Post daily.
Have you created profiles on all relevant platforms for your brand?
Yes? Perfect. Now make sure to stay active on those accounts.
Picture this. You stumble upon a brand’s social media page. You’re slightly interested, but realize that their most recent post was from 3-4 weeks ago.
Are you going to follow them? Probably not.
After all, what’s the point of following a business that doesn’t post content or shows signs of activity on its page?
Evidence of mediocre social media management can say a lot about a brand.
Let’s think about it another way. People who follow you won’t just visit your social media page out of the blue. You need to keep posting new content that will appear on their timelines.
Take a look at the social media pages you find yourself visiting the most often. Usually, you’d find that you arrive at their page through one of their ads or posts on your feed.
Posting content regularly is the same as reminding your followers that you exist and stand out from your competitors.
If your competition is only posting once per week, it’ll be easier to make a better impression on your follower base just by posting once per day.
If you don’t know what to post, go back to your marketing goals and think about what type of content works for them. You can even use previously published content!
Bring back a sale or item promo that went well in the past and have it as a returning thing. If you have a YouTube video on how to use one of your products, post tiny bits of the video through multiple posts on a multipart series, all linking to the full video.
You can share new content from your website or other social media profiles as well. Add links to your most recent publications.
Apart from being active, you need to engage and respond to your customers. This applies to both direct messages and comments. Luckily, platforms like Facebook and Instagram already have automated features that make this job more manageable.
Give Your People A Reason To Follow You
Once you start posting daily and using effective hashtags and marketing strategies on your social media, your follower count will increase.
After growing your follower base, it’s time to convert your followers into customers.
This can be done with relative ease, as people are more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media.
People are usually interested in following a small business on social media for the following reasons:
- Interest or curiosity in a product or service.
- Exclusive promotions and offers.
- Apart from having good products, the brand’s content is entertaining.
- There are offered incentives or an extra value when following.
- Friends and family recommended it.
- They were convinced by an advertisement they saw.
Your content needs to give them a reason to follow you.
We talked about promotional sales before. You can also run a contest or offer discounts on the first order after following. If they like your product, they won’t hit the unfollow button.
A fair warning: Don’t go overboard with promotional posts. Too much promo content may cause people to unfollow you.
Posting daily does not equal spamming content.
Don’t post multiple times a day either, as you may flood your customers’ timelines and homepages, creating an unfavorable experience that stems from following you.
Partner With A Social Media Management Company
This isn’t a must. You can definitely succeed in the digital marketing world by managing your social media on your terms, especially if you follow the tips highlighted above.
However, as an owner of a small business, time isn’t something you always have. More and more responsibilities will fill your schedule as your business grows, especially if your social media management is effective.
All of the things described in this blog are incredibly time-consuming, and there is only so much you can take off your plate by using automation tools and other resources.
Your small business needs social media management to stay relevant in an ever-expanding digital world.
Don’t let such an important strategy go to waste because you don’t have enough time to do it effectively. Hiring someone to manage your social media accounts might be just what you need!
If you’re looking for someone to handle all of your social media marketing endeavors for you, be sure to give Mrkt360 a call! We are a digital marketing agency specializing in social media management solutions and SEO services.
Are you ready to bring social media marketing for your business to life?
