SwipeTown Academy

Want to use social media for your small business, but struggling to gain traction?

Wondering how to jump start your efforts, but not sure where to begin?

I know, it can be confusing.

In fact, only 53% of small businesses say they actively use social media. The rest? They claim they don’t have the bandwidth, resources, time, money or energy.

And I get it. As a small business, running the day to day can leave you feeling stretched thin.

Add to that the overwhelm of marketing your business and you have the makings of a meltdown.

But here’s the upside. Using social media for your small business isn’t rocket science. In fact, it’s pretty simple once you know a few insider secrets.

Start With A Plan

Every good business strategy starts with a good plan. Social media marketing for small business is no different. Since it’s so easy to use and you can get started with organic posts for free, it might be tempting to dive in and just start posting.

But without a plan, you have no way of knowing what you’re trying to achieve with your social media posts, and no way to measure whether you get there. Taking the time to create a social media plan right upfront will ensure that all your social efforts support specific business goals.

Make A Commitment To Social Media

The first thing that businesses and entrepreneurs can do to find success is make a commitment to social media.

Like any other form of marketing, social media for businesses can be a real challenge. It’s hard to grow an audience, create great content, and increase engagement.

Often we see brands giving up on social media after just a few months.

We’ve found that it takes eight months to one year to really get the hang of social. Not only to get a consistent content stream going, but to figure out what your audience resonates with and what they don’t.

Lead With Objectives

“Start with your top three marketing objectives, then evaluate how social media may help you achieve them.

Too often business owners buy into the idea that ‘I have to be there. I have to be in all these new places or I’ll be left behind.’ But social media has to help you reach your objectives or you’re just wasting time.

Don’t think of social media as just a megaphone for your business, but think about how it can help you reach your goals.”

Listen To Customers Rather Than Promote

Social media offers an open-ended platform to communicate and engage with your customers, so use it as such.

Utilize the little time you have on social media to understand your customers and address their needs, not to promote your product.

This approach will not only help you better understand your customers’ preferences, but it will also help you create a loyal customer base who trusts your brand.

Mix It UP!

People join social media to be—you guessed it—social! Your followers will start dropping faster than a politician’s Election Day promises if all they see are ads for your services.

Diversify your posts with interesting or funny images, articles, videos, and links related to your industry to get people to click that Subscribe button.

In between all the hilarious and thought-provoking content, you can slip in posts about your services that won’t come across as pushy advertising.

Consider using a social media editing service to ensure that these are effective, optimized, and error-free.

Not only will more people see the vital information your company needs them to see, they’ll subconsciously develop a positive attitude toward your brand. Before you know it, you’ll have your own marketing army—for free!

Optimize The Company’s Website To Enable Social Sharing

Whether you are an e-commerce website or blog, optimizing your company’s website to add direct social sharing buttons is a good idea.

Through these buttons, readers can share the content immediately to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or even through mail and WhatsApp options.

By doing so, not only are you providing convenience to your readers, but also increasing your reach simultaneously.

Select Tools to Schedule and Automate Posts

Staying active and present on social media takes time and dedication, but there are plenty of automation tools available you can use to automatically publish posts and schedule posts up to a month in advance.

These tools, which include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, MeetEdgar, and BuzzSumo, can save you time by allowing you to plan and schedule batches of posts at once, but they also make it easier to monitor your networks and respond to messages quickly.

Choose the Right Platforms

There is no shortage of social media sites on which to share your content.

The number of sites is growing every day. Sharing your content on the right platforms is crucial to your success.

When determining which channels to use, you should consider your customers and your business.

It’s important that you create accounts on the platforms your target audience uses, so they can easily connect with you.

Conduct some research to determine what sites your audience probably uses, and then use them too.

You should also consider which sites best fit your products. For a video production company, for example, YouTube is an obvious choice.

Cut through the social media noise

Once you’ve identified your target audience, how do you cut through all the social media noise and catch the eye of a potential customer?

As always I hope you find this information important. Do you use one of this tips? Do you have more ideas? Share your ideas with the community by leaving a comment below.