Social media strategies for small businesses vary greatly from those for large or mid-sized businesses. First and foremost, you may have a very strict, very small marketing budget and you simply have to make do.
Furthermore, you need to find an all-in-one kind of social media marketing strategy that makes sense for your business. You don't have the budget, the team, or the time to work with five different people on five different strategies.
Instead, you need to work with one team, person, or agency on your all-encompassing social media marketing action plan. Here are a few ways to create the essential small business social media marketing strategy.
1. Start with your goals and objectives.
What are you trying to accomplish through your marketing? You don't want to start a strategy blindly and end up just pushing content out with no real rhyme or reason.
Instead, you need to understand your business goals and objectives from the get-go. Are you trying to launch a new product? Are you working to increase app downloads? Do you want to grow your email newsletter list? Have you failed to reach sales goals, and do you need a new approach?
There are many different objectives from which you can choose on which to base your marketing strategy.
2. Find your platforms.
Which platforms make sense for your business and your business objectives? Some platforms are better for businesses with a visual product, some are better for national brands, and some are better for a business with personality.
Facebook tends to be all-encompassing, and every business should have a presence here. It has over 2.9 billion monthly active users, making it the number one social media platform by far.
Instagram and YouTube are perfect for visual businesses, and Pinterest doesn't work for local businesses, so you need to have a national platform, or at least the ability to ship nationwide. LinkedIn works best for B2B strategies, and Twitter is perfect for tech companies or businesses that aren't afraid to be a little sassy.
TikTok is the newer kid on the block of social media platforms. While the audience is generally in the 16-24 age box, users range from politicians and celebrities, to moms and average Joes, so almost everyone is represented here and able to connect with video only content in small, bite-sized clips. And, with nearly 500 million active monthly users and growing, TikTok may be a platform to consider for your business.
3. Know your audience.
It's important to also know who you're targeting. Knowing your target market and who is most likely to buy from you is essential to creating content specifically for that audience.
When you're creating your social media content and campaigns, you want to get into the mind of your audience and understand what is going to resonate most with them. This is how you get an engaged and loyal social media audience (and customer base) for your business. Having well-defined buyer personas is a good place to start.
4. Create a community.
Social media helps to create a one-to-one customer channel for your business, and that's really powerful. You want to take full advantage of this communication tool, so you don't only want to create and pump out content to share at your audience.
Instead, you also want to create communities and interact directly with your customers. You can do this through Facebook Groups, Twitter chats, IGTV, live video streams, and more.
Figuring out the best way to communicate directly with your audience via social media is key to a successful social media marketing strategy.
5. Create visual content.
There are many different aspects of content, but it's important to remember that visuals sell. Sixty-five percent of the population are visual learners, so you want to be sure you're incorporating tons of visual content into your strategy.
This includes product photos, imagery of services rendered, infographics, video content, and more. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to create this type of content, either. Smartphone apps, graphic design software like Canva and Visme, and stock photo sites can be huge assets in your content creation.
6. Don't over-post.
You don't need to post multiple times a day, and in many cases, you don't even need to post every day. Two to three times a week can work just fine for a small business social media strategy, as long as you're putting quality effort into your content.
Social media content should always be quality over quantity. Don't put content out just for the sake of putting it out. Make sure it coincides with your strategy and objectives, has a purpose, and is beautifully created or curated content.
7. Check your social media analytics.
Each social media platform has built-in analytics, and you can take advantage of third-party analytics sites to get even better reports. Alternatively, you can leave all of that to your marketing agency, who can sift through the most relevant stats and present them to you in a beautiful report.
Regardless of your method, it's important to look at your social media analytics or report every month or quarter or so to make sure that your social media marketing strategy is working.
Although it can take at least three months to see progress when you're first starting out with a strategy or campaign, after those initial few months, you should definitely start to see some results. Be sure to make any necessary tweaks or adjustments based on popular content with your audience.
If you're ready to get started on your small business's essential social media marketing strategy, contact us today. We'd love to chat with you about your goals and objectives and how we can create a comprehensive strategy surrounding them.
Written By: David Carpenter
