Social media has now become an essential part of a small business’ marketing strategy. From once asking whether to use social media to promote their small business, owners are now asking how to use social media to promote their business.
Marketing for a small business owner can be an unavoidable pain. Be it due to a lack of proper expertise, or lack of time to spend all day navigating various social media platforms, or the lack of budget to hire an in-house social media specialist, social media marketing remains an enigma for many small business owners.
Considering these limitations, the following tips will enable small businesses to focus their investments in social media and see increased traffic, enhanced brand awareness, and greater customer satisfaction.
1. Plan the posts ahead of time of time
Time is the most precious commodity. And the most efficient way to manage it is to schedule social media content sharing ahead of time.
Once a business has developed its strategy and understood the requirements of its campaigns, it can go ahead and create all the necessary content. Then it can, create a calendar to track all its posts.
In addition to helping a small business manage its content in one place, creating a calendar will let it plan the posting schedule in one go. This means that the business won't need to worry about its posting plans multiple times during the day/week. This method will also let the business share the plan within its team (if they have one!) for easy collaboration and delegation.
While planning ahead is a very efficient way to deal with this necessity, it is very important to keep an eye on the current affairs and update content, as external events such as a natural disaster or an unfortunate incident can show some content as insensitive.
2. Customize content for your audience
Impactful social media presence is not only about how often you post, it is also about what you post!
When coming up with the marketing strategy, businesses must identify their target audience. Without this clarity, all social media efforts will be spread too thin across a sea of content and lose its impact.
By focusing on the target audience, small businesses should come up with content that seeks the customers out and speaks their lingo. For example, a business selling pet care should spend their energy in compiling and sharing information and tips that build value and trust with pet owners. Or, if a business is selling skiing gear, it should compile its content, copies and images that are attractive to that personality and demographic.
Facebook and other social media have excellent targeting capabilities. We can target specific behaviors, interests and needs, even down to individual job titles and employers. Making the best use of these filters is very important for a successful marketing strategy.
3. Stand out from the crowd Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users, and over a million businesses trying to catch the eye of a potential customer. In such a scenario, how can a small business stand out and capture the attention of their target audience?
The most common mistake small business do is to broadcast product information and promotions. They will most likely see lukewarm customer reaction and engagement, as every other competitor is doing almost the same.
What captures attention and draws customers is by creating authentic content. Specifically, original video content and original blogging content. Coming up with such original content is very important for a successful marketing campaign.
One advantage small businesses have is a close, direct relationship with customers. Using Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, etc. to provide updates and communication will keep the community engaged. And as mentioned in our article around marketing strategy mistakes, keeping existing customers coming back is as important as getting new ones.
4. Measure actionable metrics
Once these aspects of a marketing strategy are sorted out, businesses need to understand “Whether it all works?” Hence, understanding what to measure and how to measure them is another important aspect of a marketing strategy that most businesses fail to figure out.
It is important to understand how to distinguish vanity metrics, those that look good but are not actionable (for example the number of likes on a post), from actionable metrics. The major difference between number of followers and the number of likes on a post is that the former is an indication of the number of people who want more of the business’ in their lives, while the later could mean anything.
In addition to identifying actionable metrics, businesses should also set goals and targets. For example, instead of saying they want to increase the number of followers, businesses should target to increase the number of followers by X% over Y duration. That way they have something tangible to refer to and see if they are on the right path or need adjustments.
5. Ensure customers want to come back
Once all the above processes are in place, businesses will have a lot of opportunities to interact directly with their customers. It is extremely important that businesses make the most of these opportunities to delight customers with personal attention and responses.
Businesses need to go above and beyond to understand the customer at a personal level, and make sure that they throw in a little extra to “wow” them and make them a customer for life. For example, if a dentist knows that his customer has a new born child, they could gift the customer with a small rattle toy for the baby. This will ensure a personal touch and delight the customer.
Of course, a delighted customer is the best brand ambassador for a business, more so in the social media ecosystem. If a customer is appreciative of the business’ services, they should be asked to leave a good review on Yelp, Google Reviews and other such locations. Following these strategic steps will tremendously help small businesses build a strategic social media presence and make the most of the platforms to increase customer base and keep it happy.