Owning and running a small business takes time and effort. The same can be said for managing a small business’ social media accounts. Here are 6 social networking tips for small businesses
When you use best practices to understand your audience, set appropriate goals, engage with users, create content, and leverage ad targeting, you can take your small business’s social media marketing to the next level.
By taking it one step at a time, you’ll be better prepared to launch a social media campaign and connect with potential customers you haven’t reached yet!
6 social media networking tips for small businesses
1. Identify your target audience on social networks
Knowing your audience for any marketing campaign is an essential starting point for guiding your messaging, tone, and marketing efforts. However, you can deepen your knowledge of your social audience on each platform as you explore social network marketing.
Social network platforms each offer a version of audience analysis where you can learn more about the demographics of your audience specific to that social network. Exploring information such as age, gender, interests, income, and education of your audience can help you find the right approach for each platform.
For example, below you can see Audience Insights for an automotive site from Facebook. With this information, we know that we want our posts to appeal to men more than women between the ages of 25 and 54.
2. Set social media goals for your business
Once you get to know your social media audience, it’s important to set goals for your small business on social media.
Think about how your social platforms can influence potential and existing customers throughout the buyer’s journey. Will you use social media to build awareness of your small business or to engage existing customers?
You can have multiple goals for your social media marketing if you have the time, staff, and effort to achieve them all. We recommend that you start with the most important goals and work your way up before you get too big for your britches!
According to Sprout Social, the top three goals of social media marketers are:
- Increase brand awareness
- Increase community engagement
- Increase clicks to the site. No matter what your goals are, you should always engage with your audience.
- Facebook referencing
3. Actively engage with your audience
It’s called social networking for a reason! All too often we see companies create accounts, schedule content, and say “OK, our work is done! We have a social media presence. “Being active with your audience on social media is key to building relationships and trust with your audience.
On social media, your audience includes current and potential customers. So you want them to perceive your business in a positive light.
Choose the right platforms.
Just because there is a social platform doesn’t mean your small business has to use it. We’d prefer a small business to only have a Facebook page and be highly engaged: answering questions and responding to comments all the time, as opposed to having a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest account, and barely checking any of them or creating valuable content on a regular basis.
As a small business owner or employee, you already have a lot to manage. So it’s important to only manage the social accounts you can handle so you can do it successfully!
To determine which platforms are best for your small business, take another look at your target audience and goals. If you want to reach parents with your monthly events, Facebook can be a great fit. If you want to reach millennials with engaging visual resources, you can post and interact with users on Instagram.
Keep business information accurate
Keeping your pages up to date may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s often overlooked! When was the last time you did an audit of your social accounts to review your information, bio, hours, address, contact information, etc.?
It’s important to ensure all of your platforms’ information is consistent. This also applies to your cover photo and profile picture to increase your brand identity on all platforms.
Whenever your small business makes an update, transfer it to your social media accounts. If you update your tagline or change your hours of operation, incorporate the social media account update into that change. Not doing so is like saying, “We’re distant and unresponsive” like outdated information on social media.
Monitor engagement and activity on your accounts
In addition to keeping information current, staying active on your accounts shows your audience that you are accessible and responsive, and consider what people have to say. Engagement doesn’t take much time or effort. A quick and simple response can go a long way!
Areas to monitor daily, two to three times a day, include but are not limited to:
- Comments
- Actions
- posts
- Mentions
- Check-Inn
- Tagged photos
- Reviews and recommendations
- replies
- Retweets
- Mentions
- posts
- comments
- Mentions
- Tagged photos
- Direct messages
- comments
- Mentions
- Actions
- posts
- comments
- Reviews
- Questions
4. Start and respond to conversations via private messages
We mentioned messaging as an area to watch above, but we’re firm believers in putting more emphasis on this area for small businesses on social media.
Customers increasingly use private messages from outlets on every platform to connect and interact directly with small businesses. We recommend that you take a reactive approach to respond to every incoming message.
On the other hand, we also recommend you be proactive with the messages. When someone comments and you need to move the conversation to a private platform or if you want more detailed information, start a private message or ask the user to start a PM conversation.
Facebook currently displays the average response time for Pages that respond quickly to posts, which is a great opportunity to show your responsiveness.
5. Create content that generates meaningful interaction
The two main reasons why people stop following companies on social networks? When companies share too many informational posts or irrelevant information.
The main reason a user unsubscribes from a company is when they share too many promotional posts, followed by sharing information that is not relevant. To avoid both recurring problems, share and create content that creates meaningful interactions.
Try asking your audience for their opinion on a topic they are very interested in or asking people to vote for their favorite product.
With this type of content, you’ll interact with your audience to build relationships, learn more about them and increase your reach, especially on Facebook because of its meaningful interaction and influence on algorithm placement.
Among the tips on social networks: Be consistent
Consistency is also a factor for social algorithms. Stay consistent with your content to leverage your progress in terms of content and interaction with your audience.
Quality over quantity
Consistency is key, but every post you share for your small business should be high quality and have a purpose. Avoid posting just to post. Post with the intention of engaging your audience.
Related articles
- This Is How To Choose The Best Social Media For Your Business.
- 3 Reasons You Must Take LinkedIn Training Courses.
- 6 Tips To Carry Out Content Marketing Strategy On Instagram.
6. Leverage ad targeting to reach potential customers.
A small business can leverage the unique aspects of different social advertising platforms to reach its target audience. Each social platform offers to target by location, age, and gender. In addition, each platform offers advanced targeting, sometimes based on interests, demographics, keywords, etc., to target the audience you want to reach.
A good starting point for small businesses and social media advertising is to use engagement or traffic campaigns to drive audience interactions or bring users to your site to learn more about your business.
