Running social media profiles for your small business isn’t as simple as it may seem at first glance. With so many things to think about, it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know what you’re doing. So if you’re new to all of it, your best bet is to read all the social media tips for small businesses you can find. Here, you’ll find seven of them to help you figure everything out.
Of course, you can’t become an expert after reading just one article, but you can learn the basics. If you know all the key things to focus on, creating a strategy that will bring you results will be much easier. And that’s exactly what we’ll teach you today.
Soak up and use everything you read here, and you’ll get and stay ahead in business. You’ll grow your audience and make your brand matter in no time. Here’s how to do it.
1. Know Your Competitors
Your competitors are targeting the same people as you do, so it pays off to keep an eye on them. Look at what works for them, and use that knowledge to improve your strategy.
If you want to do it right, look at what big guys are doing. They’re investing in marketing, so it makes sense they’re following all the right practices. Still, not all of them will have the same results. So, compare their number of followers and engagement rates to determine who has the best tactic.
Once you know that, look more closely at what these companies do. Track how often they post, what they post, and what their audience responds to well. The more analysis you do, the easier it will be for you to create social content that your audience will want to consume.
2. Pick the Right Platforms to Use
There are plenty of social media platforms out there, but that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. If you’re embarking on your social media journey for the first time, it would be wise to ask your customers which channel they’d like you to use.
On the other hand, if you’re already active on social, you should perform a social media audit. Check how large your following is on each channel and how engaged your followers are. It shouldn’t be hard to realize which platforms you should continue working on.
Make the right choice here, and you’ll increase your prospects and generate more leads sooner than you might hope. You’ll be easily accessible to your target audience, so more of them will find out about you.
3. Make Creating Content Easy
Creating social media content is a lot of work. However, with proper tools, it can be a breeze. Let’s go over a few solutions that will make the life of any social media manager much more manageable.
- Inoreader is a tool you can use to find new content ideas and keep up with what your competitors are doing. It gathers all your news sources into one feed, so you’ll save time researching.
- Canva is an app you can use to create your posts, and it has a free version that’ll be more than enough for an average user.
- Grammarly will make sure there are no grammar mistakes or misspellings that could cost your brand reputation.
- RiteTag is an absolute must if you’re planning on using hashtags. There’s a trial version, and after giving it a try, we promise you that you won’t be sorry to pay for the subscription.
4. Automate Your Posting
The next of our social media tips for small businesses could have easily been a part of the last tip, but we feel it deserves its own spot on the list.
If you don’t automate your posting routine, staying active will become a greater and greater challenge. It’ll take too much of your time, making it harder for you to focus on things that matter for your business even more.
You want to utilize tools like HootSuite or Social Media Poster to use social media effectively. They’ll allow you to post across platforms from one place and schedule posts to go live whenever you want them to. So, you can do your whole month of posting in minutes.
5. Engage With Your Audience
You can’t expect your followers to trust you and want to buy from you if you don’t show them how much you care about them. So, you need to keep track of all your online mentions, comments, and messages and respond to them.
Of course, you’ll get both positive and negative feedback, and you must treat them as equally important. Thank the people who are happy with your service, and try to find a way to make the unsatisfied customers like you.
Engage with your audience and show them that there are people behind your brand. You don’t want them to feel like they’re talking to a corporation. You’re a small business, and you should showcase that you care about satisfying the needs of each of your customers.
6. Make People Coming Back for More
Watching closely what your competitors do will give you a glimpse of what route to social media presence you could take. However, no rules are set in stone, and if you have some ideas of your own, be sure to use them.
It’s all about keeping your audience at the edge of their seat. So don’t be afraid to try videos, quizzes, or even live streams if pictures aren’t cutting it for you. You can even use the current hype around things like game or TV series releases to draw attention to your products.
Marketing is an exciting game, and the social media portion of it isn’t any different. Be creative, entertain your audience, and you’ll gather more and more followers as you go.
7. Integrate the Online and the Offline
If your business has a physical location, you can reap plenty of benefits by channeling your followers to it. So, use your social media profiles to promote your events or special offers. Similarly, you can ask people who visit your store to follow you on social. It’ll help you grow your audience, and all of the new followers will be your existing customers.
As a result, you’ll increase your retention rates, and thanks to the social proof that social media brings with it, your conversion rate will also rise.
Do you have some social media tips for small businesses that you’d like to share? Feel free to leave them down in the comments.