55% of consumers learn about new brands on social media. We’ve all been there, mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when an advertisement for a new clothing brand catches our eye. We click the link, and before we know it, we’ve ordered three new sundresses from a company we’ve never heard of. Social media connects small businesses with a captive audience ready and willing to purchase its products, but only if they can find the right people and speak to them the right way. Here are our top 10 tips for small business owners that want to grow their social media presence.
10 Tips For Small Business Owners To Grow Their Social Media Presence
Focus On The Networks That Matter
While it may be tempting to create a business social media account for every platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok, etc.), this strategy can backfire quickly. The reality is that your customers are not on every platform, so you need to go where they are. It’s far better to put your energy into two or three platforms than have ten poorly managed accounts. If your customer base is mainly on TikTok and Instagram, there’s no point in creating a Pinterest account. You can’t do it all, and there’s no reason to try. Reach out to your audience in the places where they’re already spending time online.
Post Thoughtful Content
Before posting on social media, you should consider creating a content strategy to guide your posts. Social media users see a lot of advertisements and posting solely sales content will drive them away fast.
Focus your social strategy on being helpful, educational, and entertaining at first. Building a social media presence is like building a relationship; you can’t receive if you don’t give. As you gain followers over time, you can add in more sales content but be sure to balance it with other posts focused on topics your audience truly cares about. For example, a health food brand might post about the latest food trend (adaptogenic mushroom, anyone?!)
Stay Up To Date On Trends
Social media trends seem to change almost daily, so while it may feel challenging to stay ahead of the curve, it’s definitely worth the effort to grow your social audience. By joining the latest trends on social media, you are showing your followers that you’re “in the know,” and you understand what people are looking for when they sign into their social channels. This helps you create content that resonates.
Follow Your People
Another way to grow your audience on social media is to regularly engage with and follow your customers. While you can easily buy likes, it’s far better to grow your fanbase organically.
You want a social media account that will bring you tangible results. You need to follow real people, brands and accounts to build up your list of followers. Often when you follow an account, they’ll follow you back and be more likely to engage with you because you’ve shown an interest in them.
Cross-Promote Your Networks
Consider cross-promoting your accounts to build up your social media accounts. Share your Facebook account on Twitter, advertise it in your email newsletter, and put it on your company vehicles. You can even offer customers a coupon code for following your accounts.
Post Regularly
The fastest way to kill your social media efforts? Posting infrequently. To keep your social media presence strong, you must post regularly. The more you post, the more opportunities you have for your posts to be seen and shared by your followers. When you go a long period between posts and people stop engaging with your content, the algorithms that run social media platforms will start showing your content less to your followers.
Partner With Another Brand
To grow your social media accounts, it’s worth partnering up with a company in a similar industry to yours. By taking advantage of someone else’s network to grow your connections, you can enjoy an influx of followers with very little overhead. For example, suppose you own a car insurance company. In that case, you may want to partner with an auto dealership or auto detailer to run a social media giveaway or contest where users must follow both companies to win a prize.
Be Consistent
Brand consistency across social media channels is essential to success. You want your company to be easily recognized, so it’s critical to have your branding dialed in before beginning your social media journey.
Consider creating a brand style guide with brand logos, colors, fonts, and keywords. When you have a style guide to refer to, you can ensure that all of your social media posts look on-brand.
Make the Most of Video
Video content is kind of a big deal right now. Ok, it’s a huge deal. 85% of social media users want more videos from brands. Take advantage of this trend by filming short video clips of your day-to-day business activities. For example, if you own a bakery, film the cooking process, from mixing ingredients to the finished product.
Ask For Feedback
Finally, to grow your social media presence, don’t forget to ask your audience what content they want to see. While it might make you feel like a novice, polling your customers is actually a very effective strategy and one that influencers frequently use to map out their content.
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