If you’ve been searching for a fast and thorough guide for the best and most useful advice for managing your social media, then search no more, read our blog post about the social media strategies dedicated to small businesses.
We are all aware of the fact social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses work the same as local ads once worked, where we could find hairdressers, great restaurants or cafes, pastries, gyms, or vets. Nowadays, social media has become a place for building a brand, connecting with buyers, promoting, and much more.
The focus of this text will be on small, family businesses, where the work has been done internally, i.e. they don’t have one person for a social media manager, another one in charge of design, the third one for building a community… it is the owner who works as a one-man-band.
Taking all this into consideration, you’re probably spending much time trying to figure out all about new trends, dig Facebook groups, in search of the best advice when it comes to social media, etc. it can be very time consuming, especially if you are at the very beginning.
All actions you take are meaningful as there are 4.2 billion active social media users on our planet. Based on studies, if they spend about two hours per day on social media, there’s a high probability you can present your business to new buyers, build awareness and a relationship with them, even sell your product directly on social media.
We’re sharing 11 top tips for rocking on social media, in case you are a small business owner. Remember the sequence and start building profiles on a healthy and strong basis.
#1 Planning before all
Before you start using social media for business promotion, keep in mind each well-shaped business strategy starts with planning and creating a successful plan. Don’t say – I know all about it, it is deadly simple, I am posting on my private profile on a regular basis.
Business profiles are completely different, they involve more effort, dedication, and consistency to be managed properly. Creativity is certainly needed, but it’s not crucial. To stand out from the competition, you should create a plan in advance with clear goals you want to achieve, steps to realize it all, and a deadline.
Before you start posting your content on your business profile, remember time and effort you invest in your social media posting, can be observed as direct investment into your business, because it will bring conversion and profit.
#2 Decide which platforms work for you which ones don’t
Don’t assume about your target audience positioning, do thorough research related to the target audience, and find out where to locate it (what social media). It is essential to base your planning on data, not on assumptions.
If you are selling a product interesting to generation Z, your instinct should tell you to skip Facebook and focus on Instagram and Tk Tok. Is that the right thing though? According to studies, ¼ of Facebook users have between 18 – 24 years, so we shouldn’t discard Facebook.
To use social media in the best possible way for your business, and get to conversions, you need to invest time in researching the market, target audience, and its needs, so you can take the right direction.
Certainly, nothing should be taken as black-white or use the tactics all or nothing. Instead, time should be spent on creating a strategy for targeting different target audiences on different channels and set goals for all these channels. Use various channels for different purposes to reach a wide range of target audiences.
For example, you could grow your audience and collect likes on Facebook and Instagram, but transfer customer service on Twitter. Metalac company has a strong Twitter community and great visuals on Instagram.
#3 Get to know your target audience better
Social media marketing is efficient due to the fact it is possible to micro-target the users. This tactic is good for getting the best and most precise results. Before you start with this approach, it is of vital importance to meet your audience. Wondering what it means?
Data, statistics, constant insight, and analytics of profile data, and you will clearly understand who likes what who are the buyers and what items your audience prefers to see, and to what extent, on your profile.
Once you define your target audience, the next step is to describe your buyer persona in detail. That will be very useful as you will exactly define the way to address your typical buyer. Furthermore, this will be very useful, because you will understand the way to address your typical buyer, how to present your product, so to draw attention, and fit your customers’ needs and requirements.
#4 Grow your audience
Now that you have defined all, meet the target audience and its typical representative, it is time to grow and revise the plan of social media posts. Also, it is recommendable to reach the ones that think in a similar way as your target audience but still haven’t heard about you.
Try giving them a discount, free advice, organize a competition, ask your followers to tag their friends, so they can take part in the competition. When they realize you not only offer the competitions but discover you share valuable information, they will stay on your profile even after the competition, since they get the value they need, i.e. learn from you, get motivated, and finally purchase your product or service.
#5 Build relationships, grow your community
Unique marketing benefit on social media for small businesses is the possibility of direct communication with buyers and followers, establishing a friendly relationship via private messages, responding to their comments, comments, reactions on Instagram stories. Building a relationship may take some time, the same way it happens when we build a relationship with friends, in the end, it pays off as it brings us loyalty, and finally a loyal customer.
Based on stats, 44% of social media users use these platforms to find new brands. Your chance to win them depends on your attitude. Answer all their questions, let them know you appreciate their loyalty, follow their content, be happy when they tag you, and share with other followers so they see when someone takes a shot and compliment any of your services or products.
The more your followers are involved in sharing your content, saving it, commenting, etc, your profile will get a better ranking and more organic reach. In other words, you will be able o get into your followers’ feeds, get the opportunity to show a research feed where you can be seen not only by your followers but others as well.
What else can you do apart from answering comments and messages:
- Create a Facebook group
- Connect with other followers on stories and posts
- Mention followers in stories and posts
- Use interactive tools inside applications (stickers, boxes for questions, questionnaires, etc.)
#6 Keep pace with trends
Of course, you should not follow every possible trend but it is advisable to follow general trends on social media and keep pace with new arrivals that could be beneficial for the promotion of your brand in a new fresh way. One of the best examples is Instagram reels.
Always keep in mind the most common reasons social media users consume them. If your posts don’t meet one or any of their needs, they will find it boring, this further leads to fewer interactions with your profile and less success on social media. Most common reasons for consuming social media:
- To follow current news (all breaking news appear on social media first)
- To find entertaining and funny content (cats, babies, etc.)
- To fill free time (while in a waiting room, bored at work, or at school)
- To stay in touch with friends and family (everyday contact via social channels make people more comfortable with the distance that divides them)
- To share photos and videos (this way they share life, happiness, sorrow, happiness)
#7 Sell your products on social media
In the last few years, marketing on social media has expanded and now it also includes social commerce, i.e. the possibility to sell products directly via social media. In 2020. total sales on social media were 90 billion dollars, so it turns out this selling channel is too important to be missed. Modernize, connect your webshop with your Instagram page, and spare yourself answering boring questions in comments and messages about the price.
#8 Do your best to keep up with current trends and constantly change posting formats
At one point your followers may find your standard strategy when it comes to social media posting uninspiring. For this reason, it is important to change the strategy, follow trends, experiment with new formats, and always feel the pulse of your audience.
If your standard post is photography, make some effort to create a video or reels. If you are selling a certain service on Instagram, then carousel posts with detailed explanations would be very useful to your followers.
Be open to experimenting, take photos, carousel posts, lives, check analytics. The most important tip is to never give up testing your strategy, and changing formats are one of the best ways to achieve it. Don’t forget to write descriptions of photos and videos, as this will help you create a quality pos, not only visually appealing but also followed by a description with useful info.
#9 Focus on quality not on quantity
For sure you thought there are too many social media channels and you’ve been wondering if you can catch up with all of them. We think you shouldn’t. It is not important how many channels you are maintaining, it is more important to post quality content on as many social media you are able to manage. The point is to be present on key channels that are relevant for your business.
Besides, posts should be interesting and useful, not only selling the products because no one will follow as it doesn’t bring any value. Don’t forget, marketing on social media primarily exists to build a community, connections with followers, and finally, get into sales and conversions.
In the beginning, you should focus on one or two crucial channels (the majority would say Instagram but in your case, another channel could bring better sales) invest some effort to post the best and most useful content. Effort always gets awarded, dedication too, authenticity, and it is quite impossible to leave your followers indifferent if you stick to the all above-mentioned.
#10 Use the best tools that will help you automate some part of your work
You might have spotted attractive profiles, creative, and been wondering how they manage to post, add stories, reels, etc. apart from dedication, which is one of the most essential points is successful social media managing. The secret is in using tools that could automate the process of posting on social media.
Also, social media are not a TV program, and they don’t serve to produce entertaining content only. It is crucial if that content inspires followers to engage if it provokes their reaction to share your content further.
For this reason, use the tools that could be of great help in easily managing posts, so you can spend more time growing your community, listening to their needs, and creating the content accordingly.
#11 Always move forward towards your goals
As the implementation of your social media strategy is growing, it is important to analyze the achieved results, from time to time, check how far you went with your goals, what goes well or not. Only then you can dedicate time to refine adjustments and modify your posts accordingly.
Once you figure out your strategy and have a clear understanding of what goes well with your audience or not, you will be ready to improve your strategy and visual identity and move them to the next level, try new formats, expand and grow your audience. All the tools we previously mentioned can immensely help you. It is significant to pay attention to numbers and study them properly, as only the correct data can make a solid basis for further growth.
We sincerely hope you’ve managed to learn something new from this blog post. Feel free to share it with someone that can find it valuable. If you want to occupy yourself with growing your business and still think all this is too complicated for you, contact us and we will suggest the best strategy for growing your social media presence. Also, we can offer some other services, logo design, web design, package design, publication design. Titan Design opens its door for you and looks forward to our future cooperation.
