At a small business, you may shy away from diving into social media. You’re busy, you may be filling a lot of roles, and you might not think you have the budget for it. But it’s not something that you want to disregard. Social media is valuable for businesses of any size or industry, and finding customers on social media has a direct impact on sales and your bottom line.
57% of individuals are more likely to buy something from your business if they follow you on social media. That percentage jumps to 71% percent if they’ve had a positive interaction with your business online.
But getting your business on social media is more than just posting on Facebook and Instagram. People follow brand accounts (and then make purchases) because they’re responsive, they offer deals/
However, today’s post isn’t about what type of content you should be posting. Instead, we want to share tips on how your small business should handle social media in general.
Establish your goals.
Setting goals helps you evaluate your efforts and figure out which social media tactics are working. They help you decide what types of posts you’ll schedule, how frequently they’ll be published, and what platforms they’ll be published on.
Schedule specific types of content on specific days.
Social media is a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. If you’re going to be creating consistent educational content, like blog posts or Q&A’s, you should come up with a plan to schedule specific content on specific days.
For example, we publish a new blog post every other Wednesday and promote it accordingly on social media. We also send out an email newsletter on the first Thursday of every month. Not only does this help provide a guide when it comes to creating content, but it also gives your target audience something to look forward to, encouraging them to come back.
Customize your content.
Each social media network caters to a specific type of audience. What resonates with your Twitter audience may not work on Facebook or Instagram.
Look at what posts do well on one social media platform and how users are creating their own content, and replicate that. Consider the different features of each platform (links, tagging, native video, etc). and tailor your content to fit.
Share other people’s content.
One intimidating factor of social media is how fast paced it is. Because of this, you’re told you have to be posting all the time. Naturally, this raises the question: How do I create that much content? The answer: You don’t have to.
Curating content is a good way to both build connections in your industry and fill in gaps between your original content.
At first, this may seem counter-intuitive. If you share other people’s content, won’t they be the one to benefit from it? Yes, but so will you. Publishing relevant content from
Social media is a key player when it comes to businesses building their brands, generating leads, and increasing their sales. 71% of adult consumers base their buying decisions on recommendations and insights they got from social media.
Keep these tips in mind when you’re developing your marketing strategy for social media.