As a small business, how do you get in front of the people who could become your customers? You could certainly advertise, but why not engage them where they are – on social media?
Social media can seem very overwhelming to small business owners. There are a lot of platforms and there are dozens of strategies available. Where do you even begin?
This guide will help you determine where you can engage on social media and how to get momentum.
Know Your Platforms
Facebook has 2.32 billion monthly users worldwide and has users from almost every age and demographic. It’s a perfect place for a small business to start if you don’t already have a social media presence.
You can also look at Pinterest, which has 250 million active monthly users. This may seem small compared to Facebook, but users on Pinterest are actively searching for information, content, and products.
Besides those two, there’s Instagram, which has 1 billion active monthly users. This graphics-focused platform is perfect for businesses that can display their products visually.
Where should you start? Many small businesses do best with Facebook, as business owners often already use the platform personally and are already familiar with it. However, if your preferred customers spend more time elsewhere, start there.
Set Goals for Social Media
What, exactly, are you hoping to gain from your social media marketing? If you don’t have a goal, you can pour money into this marketing strategy and never know if it’s worthwhile.
Make sure your goals are SMART – you can rack up likes without ever making a difference for your business. Instead, think about how you can drive traffic to your website, boost sales, or create a community of fans that promote and review your business.
If you want help setting up social media goals and targeting your audience, work with a leading digital marketing agency like Local SEO Search Inc..
Take Advantage of Engaging Images
Every platform, even Twitter, has users that respond extremely well to engaging images. Take advantage of it! What can you share visually?
On Pinterest and Instagram, having high-quality images is absolutely vital. If you can share images of your products or services, that’s excellent. You can also create engaging images that link to content on your website to drive more traffic.
On Facebook, images are a great attention getter, but video is even better. With Facebook Live, you can do candid video anytime. Show behind-the-scenes information, share the story of your company, or even highlight your employees.
These strategies can help you build relationships and gain loyalty from followers to move them forward in the sales funnel.
Build Relationships Through Great Communication
Folks won’t buy from you unless they know, like, and trust you. As a small business owner, you can use local marketing to help build a connection. People automatically feel closer to someone from the same city or neighborhood as themselves.
How you build relationships will vary depending on the platform. You can always ask people to follow your page or account. On Facebook, a community-focused Facebook group can be a great way to build relationships. You can share local news, run contests, and use other engagement strategies.
Connect Beyond Your Initial Audience
When you begin a social media strategy, you’ll gain some initial followers. However, in order to truly succeed, you want to expand beyond your immediate followers.
There are several ways to do this, and some of them depend on the platform. On Instagram and Twitter, you can use hashtags that are relevant to your content to get more eyes on what you’re sharing. On Facebook or Pinterest, encourage your followers to share your content. That way, you gain access to their networks.
Encourage Followers Further Into Your Sales Process
All of the popularity and “likes” in the world won’t get you what you really need – which is increased sales and revenue for your business. You need to build your social media strategy to move your followers closer to becoming a buyer.
The first step is to map out what the sales process looks like for your specific business. Once people are aware of you, how do you nurture them with education and more information? For many businesses, the answer is an email list, but it may not be for you.
If it is, what can you do through your social media posts to get followers on your email list? You can offer free downloads, samples, a free trial, or a contest with a prize as an incentive for followers to join your list.
Once they’ve done that, you’re in a much better position to help your followers and fans understand why your products and services are essential and why you’re the best provider.
Specific social media strategies are often focused on individual platforms, but this guide will help you no matter what social media platform you decide to start with. Once you’ve gotten a good foundation on one or two sites, feel free to add more!
