If you’re a small business, it can be tempting to think that social media isn’t worth your time. After all, when you’re busy trying to crank out products and services or manage employees and inventory, who has time for Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram?
But the truth is that social media is actually a great way for small businesses to advertise and connect with customers—and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
Here are some tips on how to optimize your small business’s social media presence:
Effective Social Media Tips for Small Businesses
Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate with other people.
It has also changed the way people do business. Nowadays, having a social media account and waiting for customers to visit is not enough.
Even for the organic traffic to come in, you need to be active on social media and reach out to potential customers in order to get more sales and increase your brand’s presence in the market.
This article will focus on the 7 effective tips to help your small business grow on social media.
Content That Confirms Your Brand
Brands positioning themselves on social media is no longer a luxury, but a mandate.
Several brands who have successfully confirmed their brand on social media, including: KayByKatrina, 82° E, and Amul India.
Have a look at the type of words, theme, colors, and feel each brand is trying to convey. This is to ensure that your followers feel the same about your brand and easily remember it.
Source: Instagram
Source: Instagram
Source: Instagram
All of these brands have created a strong online presence by showing customers exactly what they’re all about through videos, images, colors, and even words.
They also use hashtags in their posts so their followers can easily find them if they want to learn more about the company or purchase one of their products.
Source: Instagram
If you look at the posts on the KaybyKatrina account, you can easily spot the #KayByKatrina and #KayBeauty hashtags.
This is exactly what is meant by content that confirms your brand. Repeatedly using the same hashtags words, colors has an impact over your followers will automatically claim your account when they get to use your product in the future.
Prepare a Content Calendar
Create a content calendar, which is simply a list of the content you’re going to share on social media through the course of your campaign, as well as when you’re going to share it.
This will help you stay on track and reach your goals faster. The content calendar should include: Content ideas for each platform (blog posts, videos, images, etc.)
- The date when each piece of content will be posted
- How many times should it be shared over the course of one week or month
The content calendar should also include information about when you’ll post, who will be responsible for creating the content and when it will be posted.
This way, your team is always on the same page, and you can make sure that no one misses an important deadline. The content calendar should include what you’ll share and when and where you’ll share it.
For example, if your business has a blog, consider creating an editorial calendar that details the topics you’ll cover each month—and make sure to schedule posts accordingly.
Your content calendar should be broken down by day and week, and it should also include a list of hashtags you want to use in each post. If possible, create a separate calendar for each social media platform you’re using—for example, one for Twitter and another for Facebook.
Create a Community of Followers
Building a community of followers is one way to market your business and build your brand. You can create a community that engages with you on social media by giving them value through useful content.
The community will be more likely to continue following you if they know that the content they receive from you is going to provide value and help them in some way.
On social media, it is important for businesses to share valuable information about their products or services so that consumers know why they should choose the company over its competitors.
This means creating engaging posts that are relevant and useful for members of the community you want to build, engaging them in meaningful conversations, sharing helpful articles or videos related to the industry and using hashtags correctly.
Engage In Discussions
One of the best ways to build a community around your business is to engage in discussions. This means responding to questions, comments, and concerns on social media platforms.
If someone asks you a question, don’t ignore it. If someone has a negative comment about one of your products or services, respond back respectfully, and explain why you think their experience was different than what they described.
If someone starts arguing with you or being rude on purpose (a troll), take them off the thread by blocking or deleting their comment from your post and then report the user to the platform directly if necessary.
Advertise Your Products and Services
You can use social media for advertising your products and services. If you have a blog, consider using it as a platform for promoting your business. It is absolutely necessary that you reshare your blog across all social media platforms.
When you do so, make sure to use hashtags so that people know what you’re talking about and are able to find more relevant content.
If you’re selling something, make sure that it is clearly labeled in the post title so that it will be easily found by the right audience.
You could also create Facebook ads if there is an ad platform available in the area where your business operates. You can target users who match certain criteria, such as age or location, and then show them relevant ads based on their interests (or even the content on their walls).
Ads are an effective way of reaching potential customers when implemented correctly!
Stick to Social Media Trends
As a small business owner, keeping up with social media trends is important. What used to be a popular platform for sharing content might not be as useful these days. Some social media platforms are more popular than others, so it’s best to use the ones that fit your business needs.
See the trending music on social media and try using it for your account. If a post is shared, the chances are that it will be shared again. If you have a great piece of content that doesn’t get any shares or likes, it might not be as appealing as you thought.
Try making small changes to your posts and see if those changes make a difference in engagement. Social media trends change constantly, so it’s important to keep up with them.
Social media is a very popular form of communication, so it’s important to ensure that people can find your business easily. Try using hashtags when posting on social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter; this will allow users searching for certain topics to find you as well!
It’s important to stay abreast of current trends and realize that things may change again in just a few days. It’s better to hop on to trends before it’s not a trend anymore.
Leverage Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing approaches customers via influential people to promote a product or service. Influencers have built up trust with their audience, and they can be celebrities, bloggers, or social media personalities.
Your brand can reach out to these influencers and do a paid collaboration, give free products in exchange for promotion on their platforms or do a barter campaign (whatever works for both your brand and the influencer.)
Here is a mind-blowing statistics for you to understand the influence influencers have over your consumers in buying products or services:
Source: Statista
To carry out influencer marketing, you may have to ensure that you collaborate with the right influencer who has your target audience in their follower base and can speak your brand language.
You can also leverage influencer marketing platforms like Qoruz to find the right influencer for your brand campaigns.
When it comes to paid collaboration, communicating clearly about the payment terms, including how much you’ll pay them per post, what kind of content you want them to create and when it should go live, are vital.
Conclusion
I hope this article has given you some ideas to boost your social media marketing efforts. Remember that a lot of these tips are simple and can be implemented by anyone.
With just a little time, creativity, and effort, there’s no reason for any small business not to succeed on the internet today!
