Social media has become an integral part of our everyday life. Businesses of all shapes and sizes have begun to take full advantage of the available media. Today we will try to discuss tips on social media for small businesses. There are a lot of small businesses looking for social media to promote their business / services. However, most of these small businesses are failing or unable to make optimal use of social media for their business growth. There are many theories and strategies on how to use social media effectively for established brands, but the topic of social media for small businesses is rarely addressed. According to the Digital State of eMarketing India 2017 Octane Research:

60% of small businesses promote their business on social media. 50% focus on SEO and 35% use multichannel marketing funnel.

70% of small businesses consider content strategy their main marketing activity.

52% of business owners use social media to efficiently address customer engagement.

More than 20% of business owners said they are making 50% more profit using social media.

The main reasons for the low participation are the uncertainty about the application of social networks, the calculation of the return on investment and the persuasion of employees / stakeholders to take over social networks. Therefore, it is important to address the elephant in the room and analyze how beneficial social media is for small businesses.

Small business social media is a great way for startups to build leadership and build a reputation. If updated regularly, social media can deliver more results compared to traditional media. Small business social media gives brands an advantage of control over the content they want to publish. Furthermore, since social media is a two-way dialogue process, it helps companies instantly identify what benefits them. Small business social media also helps generate word of mouth, which is one of the best tools for startups.

Small Business Social Media | 10 tips to use social media effectively

Define your target audience

The first and most important part that small businesses should focus on is defining their target audience. This helps small businesses design their social media strategy accordingly. The target audience should be defined based on the age group, gender, location, online behaviors of users, their tastes, interests and preferences. For niche products, business owners can even target users based on their birthdays, anniversaries, and important milestones. The orientation of the audience plays a very important role in the outcome of the results. For example: a local store that sells footwear should not target users interested in entertainment. The store will definitely not get the desired results.

Set achievable goals

Overnight success is a myth. Small businesses need to understand this basic fact. Usually when a new business starts selling on social media, there is a palpable enthusiasm to achieve more than the specific sales set. Businesses need to set goals that are upward and forward. To achieve huge goals, small businesses start to update the social feed with multiple updates in a shorter duration. This leads to user disinterest in the product / service. The goals set should be in sync with the core skills and experience of the brand. For example: if a business sells shoes, it should not set a goal of repairing the maximum number of shoes in its area.

Choose the right medium

By now, everyone knows that social media is free. Even paid campaigns can be run at a relatively low cost compared to traditional media. It is in this scenario, that we often see small businesses jump on the bandwagon and create profiles on all available platforms. Creating a social profile does not hamper the image of the brand, but aggressive promotion of a brand on the wrong platforms can cause the brand to lose its potential customers. Therefore, it is advisable for SMEs to first identify the appropriate platform through which they can maximize their business. For example: if a shoe sales brand tries to aggressively sell on LinkedIn, you won’t get a plausible response compared to promotions on Facebook / Instagram.

Promote your core product / services

With each and every business joining the wave of social media, it is important that they promote their core products or services. Today, we see many companies promoting their services, as well as peripheral products / services, that revolve around their core products / services. Most of the time, this SME does not have the ability to meet a requirement, which can lead to bad word of mouth for your business on social media platforms. Let’s go back to our example; If a shoe salesperson is trying to aggressively promote socks instead of shoes, it won’t benefit the business in the long run.

Create quality content

Now that we’ve covered the topics of identifying the target audience, setting achievable goals, choosing the right medium, and promoting the right product / service, let’s take a look at the type of content that a business should promote on their social pages. A business should always focus on creating good quality content rather than poor quantity content. Even if the company updates its page once a day, as long as it is relevant to its business, its main product advocates send a clear message that it is considered good quality content. Antagonically, if a company publishes multiple updates that are not even relevant to the company’s products and services, users consider the company to be bogus or spam. Also, startups should try and refrain from promoting other businesses on their social platforms initially.

Create a content calendar

Making a small business successful on social platforms is no easy task. It takes a lot of effort for companies to maintain their conversion rate. One of those efforts is creating a content calendar. Small businesses should anticipate important events and create a content calendar accordingly. Ideally, a content calendar should be planned a month in advance, but a weekly content calendar is highly recommended. This helps businesses avoid last minute problems, strategize much more effectively, and also helps build curiosity among their loyal fans / customers.

Try and try again

Social media is very unpredictable. The content that a company publishes today may not work tomorrow. Therefore, small businesses should always test their content before publishing it on their pages. The content test also applies to the platform that a small business chooses to promote. Small business owners should always put on the consumer hat before posting on any product feature, update, scheme, or offer. The consumer perspective is the key when it comes to testing the content to be uploaded.

look for inspiration

Small businesses should always look to a competitor who is successful in the same category for inspiration. Copying and pasting a competitor’s idea or content is not the answer. Small businesses should look for the type of content their competitors publish and derive their own strategies later. Inspirational content / stories always make a business live to create its own content that is appreciated by all. It helps to increase brand consideration, brand visibility, and thus increases conversions for the business.

Calculate return on investment

Even a small promotional budget is not justifiable if there is no mechanism to calculate ROI. It is more important in the case of small businesses. It is very important for a small business to control the budgets allocated to any promotion and the subsequent ROI related to it. If a certain promotion does not work well or the business does not get the desired results, the brand custodian can always look for other platforms to generate quality conversions.

Analyze and restrategy

There can be countless cases where a particular campaign / promotion might not work for a business. That does not mean that the promotion is wrong or that the product / service is not good. Doing an analysis of the campaign is as important as setting the objective. This helps the company formulate its next strategies more effectively. At the end of each campaign, brands should record the learning from that campaign and identify whether their followers appreciated the content or idea. This helps companies to skip unrealized updates from future communications.

Final thoughts

Small business social media is definitely beneficial and fruitful. If followed properly, small businesses can greatly benefit from the power of social media promotions.