Social media marketing is now a ‘must do.’ The pandemic has shifted most businesses to the digital space and now most brands are connecting, engaging and selling through social media platforms. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube just to mention a few have provided a fair ground for small businesses to market their products and services.
Below, l have discussed 7 proven social media marketing tips that small businesses can employ to succeed.
- Know the Competition
Having competition is great because you can use them to gather information about the industry. You can check to see what worked for their business and what didn’t. This information helps you adjust to your own business strategy.
Start with the big names in the industry. Study the things that they are doing, the type of content they are posting, how they are engaging their audience among others. You can also research on Facebook Pages to see who are your top competitors and study their activities on social media, comparing it against your own.
- Choose the right platform
Each and every social media platform was created for a specific reason. Businesses found their space there since more and more people keep creating new accounts, hence a market for businesses. Always keep in mind that social media platforms behave differently.
After many years of existing, certain groups of people tend to clump together on different social media platforms. Facebook sees a lot of older users while Instagram and TikTok have the youngest. There is certainly a case to be made about maximizing your reach by creating profiles on every platform. But if you want a focused approach, choose the platform where a good portion of your target audience exists.
For instance here is how you can choose on a social media platform and what it can do for your business:
a) Twitter: – Great for niche news, customer service and management due to the fact that one can respond fast and in short messages. Most brands use it for customer service and reputation management.
b) Facebook: – Engaging with millennials and over 65 years of age audience.
c) Instagram:– Sharing visuals and engaging with people using catchy, interactive and visually appealing content.
d) LinkedIn:- Creating a professional network for your business and your colleagues.
- Optimize Content Creation
Creating content for social media takes a lot of time but with the right tools on hand, it can be made simple. Running the business is stressful enough as it is, you don’t want running social media to add to that. Therefore, try to simplify how you create content for social media. As Jonas Stickler puts it,
Content optimization begins before
you write a single word.
Videos and photos that you take using your smartphone can be processed through the different image processing tools like VSCO and Canvas and then posted immediately on your page. Additionally, you can use tools to create, edit and schedule content on your pages.
Tools such as:
a) For Content Creation: These are tools that will help you design and edit content. You can also use grammarly.
b) For Scheduling: Most social media platforms have their own scheduling tools. For instance, Twitter has Tweetdeck and Facebook has Creator studio. For those without own tool use paid tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite.
- Automate
Without help from automation, it would be very difficult for you to stay on track with social media posting. There are a ton of tools you can use that are easy to set up. You can create new content beforehand and then line them up for scheduling. You can choose to post daily, every couple of days, or weekly. Tools and apps are available, most often for free, to do such tasks.
Nevertheless, don’t be a slave of automation. People hate content that doesn’t reasonate with them at the given times. Try as much as possible to create time to direct post than rely on automation tools only. Nonetheless, personalize the content.
- Engage With Your Audience
A common mistake that befalls many business owners is failing to interact with their target audience. The point of social media is to create a channel that facilitates that free-flowing interaction between the business and the customer base.
It could be said that social media falls into both marketing and customer service. On the latter, it’s very important that you engage with your audience on your business page. It could be as simple as answering a question or thanking someone who left a nice review post on their own page.
The only way to know what your audience wants is by engaging them. Respond to their queries, appreciate them when they applaud your brand and always listen to them.
- Find Out Which Content Works
The type of content you post on your social media page is going to affect how people perceive your business. It’s important that you experiment with different content formats. Try posting a couple of photos, videos, infographics, live streams, and quizzes, and see how your audience reacts.
You can post:
a) Photos of your product
b) Video tutorials on how to use them
c) An infographic about your product being compared to your closest competitors
d) Jokes, memes, and other funny statements.
Remember to set a metric for engagement for all content being posted.
Go ahead, “Test and eliminate.” By testing, you create, post and monitor to see if the content works. If it does work, continue with that. But if it doesn’t, ELIMINATE it.
- Online and Offline
Social media for small businesses is not just about what you can offer to your online customers. It’s also a great way to bridge the gap between online and offline. It is on your business’s social media page that you can promote new products and promos to your audience.
There are a lot of tools that you can use to begin strategies like video marketing for small business on social media. Look through popular posts and see what applies to your business. Consequently, don’t forget to include a clever hashtag to go with your posts.
To crown it all, build a community and be part of already existing communities. By this l mean Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Tweet Chats, Live Sessions, Webinars, WhatsApp Groups and even Workshops and Conferences.
