Marketing Foundations: Using Social Media for Small Businesses
There’s no doubt about it; used effectively, social media is a very useful tool for promoting your business. But social media marketing is a completely different ball game from personal posting, and it can be tricky to know where to start or how to keep up. With a bit of planning and preparation, you can be well on your way to social media success. Here’s how to get started:
Get Creative
First things first, you need to create your content. This might be stating the obvious, but knowing what to post and how to keep posting is a common stumbling block for many starting out on social media.
Utilised effectively, social media can be used to build awareness of your brand, attract new business and retain current clients. While a website is usually set up to provide helpful information about your business in the more traditional and professional sense, social media can help to provide a more personable, in-depth insight into your company, allowing you to showcase the personality of your brand and what to expect when working with you.
The nature of your business will of course inform the type of content you post, but generally speaking, consumers engage with and follow content that is of value to them - for example, that is informative, inspirational or entertaining. You could:
Showcase your unique offerings and/or facilities with visually striking slides.
Create reels to educate your clients with tips, insights and industry updates.
Share success stories and reviews from previous clients to highlight the positive outcomes of working with you.
Offer exclusive discounts, promotions and early access to new products or services.
Use social media ads to retarget previous clients with tailored offers and remind them of the value you can provide.
Publish blog posts and articles on your website and share them across social media platforms.
Host Q&A sessions where followers can ask questions and receive expert advice from you or your team.
Collaborate with other businesses in your industry to create co-branded content that reaches a broader audience.
Reinvigorating your ideas for valuable content will hopefully empower you to get going on your social media strategy. Just remember to ensure that the content you post is of the highest quality in terms of design, images and videos to ensure you build credibility with your brand.
Engage with your Audience
Once you’re on a roll with your content creation, it’s highly likely you will invite comments, questions and enquiries, both on your posts and via direct messaging. Great! The marketing is working its magic. Utilising this engagement is also vital to ensure you get the most out of your social media. You can do this by:
Specifically requesting your audience’s input by asking them questions. Use a poll or similar to ask if there are any areas of your industry that they would like to know more about and create collaborative content around that subject.
Responding to comments, questions and inquiries promptly, using a friendly and professional tone.
Taking the time to provide helpful information and answer questions thoroughly.
Personalising your responses whenever possible, whether with existing clients or even potential clients who engage regularly.
You can even use audience engagement to generate more social media content and increase your reach. You could try:
Creating content that encourages clients to share their stories, tagging you so that you can repost and highlight your favourites - this is known as “user-generated content”.
Offering incentives or rewards for current clients to share their feedback, journeys and progress on their own social media, and reposting and highlighting these too.
Identifying the most common questions that customers ask you and creating informative and attractive content to answer, coupled with eye-catching examples and graphics.
Your clients are the bedrock of your business, so be sure to thank them for their feedback and engagement. This will show your social media audience and potential clients you are a friendly and trustworthy professional too!
Be Consistent
As with pretty much everything in life, consistency is key for the best results. A series of well-thought out posts over a longer period will help you build a loyal following far more effectively than a shorter burst of intense posting. Some of the easiest ways to build consistency are to:
Plan and create your content in advance. A content calendar is a great way to keep track of your content ideas, deadlines, and publishing dates, whilst “batch” creating several posts or reels in one go means you have an abundance of material to play with.
Set realistic goals. Don't try to publish too much content too often; start with a manageable goal, such as publishing one instagram post per week or two blog posts per month, and go from there.
Schedule your posts on your platforms. Most social media apps have the function to schedule your posts in advance, meaning you can line your content up for the next week or so and then essentially forget about it (until the next time you have to post that is…!).
Use social media analytics to track engagement metrics. This will help you to identify which strategies are most effective in reaching your target audience, so you can ensure you are creating content that has the most impact.
With a little bit of time and effort, using social media can be an effective and enjoyable way to build your business and connect with your clients. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, take a look at our related content and products below!
