When it comes to creating a promotion strategy for a new business, an ideal scenario is one that results in the maximum possible reach with minimal budget and staffing requirements. It’s no wonder social media has been such a popular choice among small businesses, where one person is often responsible for the sales, customer service and marketing side of things.
Trying to make it in the world as a small business can often feel like an episode of Survivor: making it through the challenges in hopes of not getting voted off the island by your customers or competitors. We hear a lot of common threads in small businesses’ stories, and we decided to share them in our own version of an immunity token: The Social Media Survival Guide for Small Businesses. This 18-page eBook shares social media tips on growing your business and driving sales while making the most of limited time and resources.
Since you may not have time to read through the entire resource, we’ve summarized the key learnings here.
6 vital social media tips for small businesses
Organize your social media efforts
A common misconception that often poses challenges for businesses on social media is the idea that you have to make all your social media accounts at once. Having online visibility is great; keeping several accounts that are visibly mismanaged or neglected is…not so much. Thus, it’s important to decide which networks are most relevant to your target audience and make time to post content and engage with your followers on those channels. Create a mission statement for each social media account and devise a strategy that dovetails with your business goals.
Once you have created an account on more than one social network, consider investing in a social media management tool such as Hootsuite. Such tools allow you to stay updated on all your accounts in one dashboard, which is a huge time-saver—especially for a one-person marketing operation. With all your social media activity available in one place, it’s easy to listen and respond to your audience and foster those important relationships.
Schedule content to free up more time for engagement
Content marketing is a vital step in establishing your expertise in the industry. However, in the first stage of online promotion for your business, you may not have the sufficient resources to create original content. This is where social media comes in: it’s a great way to discover and share interesting blog posts and articles relevant to your audiences.
Find a window in your schedule that you can devote to content discovery. This can involve setting up search streams for relevant keywords or hashtags, creating RSS feeds for favorite publications, or making a Twitter list of media organizations. You can also use tools such as Hootsuite Suggestions, which makes customized recommendations based on your previous social media activity, or Syndicator Pro, which sets up RSS feeds directly in your dashboard.
Once you found a sufficient amount of content, queue up social media messaging for the near future. Be mindful of social media’s Rule of Thirds, as well as the best timing practice to avoid spamming your followers or neglecting an account. After you’ve taken care of scheduling content, you’ll have a lot more free time to devote to real-time conversations with your online audience.
Use social media to connect with potential customers in new locations
Social media data from the biggest social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, allows you to see where the majority of your followers are located. This information can help you gauge your current geographical reach, and advise on any areas of potential expansion.
You can also use geo-tagging on social media to engage with potential customers on a hyper-local level. Using geocodes, you can discover social messaging containing keywords relevant to your industry (for example, “latte” or “Americano” if you own a coffee shop) in a particular location. You can then start a conversation with those users—since you’re already talking about the same things!—and maybe invite them to check out your products or services. For a step-by-step checklist for setting up a geolocation stream, find out how Five Guys used geolocation to find and engage with new audiences during their grand UK opening.
Even if you’re not planning to expand beyond your first brick-and-mortar or online business, it’s important to set up listening streams to monitor conversations happening around your brand, your competitors, and your industry. Knowing what your target audience is talking about helps you adjust your products and services to fit their needs.
Build a community of online advocates
While social media can provide a huge boost to your marketing efforts, it shouldn’t be used solely as a promotional channel. Use this opportunity to show off the history behind the brand or an individual product, highlight a few standout employees, or discuss any community events you plan to attend.
Show people what gets you excited to come in to work every day, and invite them to share this excitement by creating their own content. You can encourage submissions of user-generated content by creating a branded hashtag or organizing a social media contest. Your most active social media fans can become your brand advocates, or social media users who voluntarily share your company’s story and values with their networks. Word-of-mouth connections of brand advocates can be worth more than any expensive marketing initiative, so take time to foster these relationships and value them dearly.
Use social channels to manage your brand reputation
Monitoring online conversations can help you put out any fires before they develop a potential to hurt your business. This applies to anything from customer concerns and negative reviews to new product releases and campaigns from your competitors. Devote some time to reputation management every day, even if nothing urgent demands your attention.
You can engage in social media listening by setting up search streams in your social media management dashboard and creating Twitter lists to get competitive intelligence.
Find sales leads using Twitter
Finally, while social media monitoring and engagement are valuable business practices, your social media efforts can contribute to your company’s bottom line in a more direct manner—by providing sales leads.
Major social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are already rolling out new ecommerce tools for advertisers. In the meantime, you can get some extra help from tools like LeadSift. This app automatically scans all Twitter conversations for specific keywords and then organizes them by direct and indirect leads. You can select keywords relevant to your business to find potential leads and classify their intent, judging whether they’re ready to buy or want more information.
For more social media tips for small businesses, download the full guide here.
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