Use these 12 crucial guidelines to get started if you’re unsure how to use social media for small business.
If you own a company, you probably spend a lot of time trying to get the most recent social media marketing advice. And with good cause.
Nearly twice as many people use social media today as there were just five years ago: 4.2 billion active users. These people log onto social media every day for an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes.
During those approximately 2.5 hours, businesses have a fantastic opportunity to:
- increase brand recognition
- create relationships with customers
- can even conduct direct business using social media networks.
Here are all the social media marketing advice you require for your company in 2021.
12 crucial guidelines for using social media for company
1. Making a plan first
Utilizing social media for commercial purposes is simple to get started with. We are all accustomed to using social media in our daily lives, thus we are all familiar with the platforms.
Making a Facebook page for your company, beginning to post on Instagram, or establishing a Twitter presence are all free to do.
But before you get in headfirst, keep in mind that any successful business strategy begins with a solid plan. Yes, social media tools are free to use. However, the time and effort spent still count as investments in your company.
You cannot reach your objectives without a plan in place. Therefore, there is no way to determine whether you are receiving a return on your investment.
Spend some time in advance developing a social media strategy. This guarantees that all of your social media initiatives serve specified corporate objectives.
From our guide to developing a social media marketing plan, the following are some strategic social media pointers:
Set objectives and goals for social media.
Establish objectives that adhere to the SMART framework. They ought to be timely, pertinent, detailed, measurable, and reachable.
Set goals based on measurements that will actually affect your company. Instead of just collecting likes, you may, for instance, try to increase your conversion rate or gain more clients.
Study the opposition
What social media strategies do your rivals employ? Learning from what others have done is a terrific approach to shorten your learning curve, even though you don’t want to duplicate them.
You may understand what’s working and what’s not for organizations similar to yours by conducting a competitive analysis.
Evaluate your social media presence
If you already use social media, this is the perfect opportunity to step back and assess your current initiatives.
You may follow along with our simple to use social media audit template.
Get motivated
You’ve examined the online activity of your rivals, but what about other companies? Draw motivation from the achievements of companies across all sectors.
Where can you discover examples of these successes? You can find helpful case studies on the business pages of most social network platforms.
Due to the numerous examples we frequently provide, our site can also serve as a fantastic source of inspiration. Just keep an eye on what your preferred brands are doing. What motivates you to click, follow, or make a purchase?
Make a social media schedule.
You can use a social media calendar to post the appropriate content to the appropriate social networks at the appropriate times. A strategy for your content mix ought to be part of it.
Start by applying the 80-20 rule. Use 80% of your material to entertain, inform, or otherwise benefit your audience. Utilize the remaining 20% to market your business or sell your products.
2. Choose the platforms that are best for you.
Don’t assume where your audience is spending their internet time.
Your gut could be telling you to ignore Facebook and concentrate on Instagram and TikTok if you’re marketing to Gen Z. However, the research reveals that about 25% of Facebook users are between the ages of 18 and 24.
Social media marketing might not seem like a top concern if you’re targeting baby boomers. But it ought to be. The most popular social networks for baby boomers are Facebook and Pinterest. The audience segment on Facebook with the fastest growth rate is those over 65.
You might believe that TikTok marketing is inappropriate for your company. However, even well-known firms with customer bases way outside of Generation Z are experimenting with this platform.
Remember that just in December 2020, TikTok recorded 56 million new app downloads.
We’ve collated demographics statistics for all of the major social networks. Use it to determine how much time your audience spends online. However, keep in mind that these demographics are merely a summary.
You must carry out your own study to ensure that you’re using social media for business properly. This will enable you to better comprehend how your particular target audience uses the internet.
There is no need to take an all-or-nothing stance when selecting your platforms. You can utilize various social media platforms to connect with various audiences or to accomplish various business objectives.
3. know who they are
You can micro-target your audience, which is one of the reasons why using social media for business is so successful. But first, you must identify your target audience.
Gather information about your present clients first. Afterward, use social media analytics to delve deeper. You’ll soon begin to realize who is chatting and making purchases from you online.
You may find granular information about the top hashtags, reference websites, and even particular social authors for phrases related to your company with Hootsuite Insights Powered by Brandwatch.
After you’ve identified your target market, you may develop buyer personas to better understand how to communicate with them. To get you started, use our free buyer persona template.
4. Enlarge the audience
You may review your social media strategy once you have a good understanding of who your target audience is. It’s time to consider how to connect with more individuals who resemble them.
For instance, The Great Courses Plus changed its Facebook advertising strategy to swiftly increase its audience when lockdown measures meant that more people were seeking for ways to pass their time at home.
They developed an extended free trial offer and promoted it to a large American audience. Then, they employed audiences that resembled their best existing clients to reach new audiences in Canada, the UK, and Australia.
The overall number of average monthly memberships created increased more than ten times as a result of this extended audience strategy.
Social media can be used to increase the number of people who know about your local business. For instance, Hootsuite geo-search streams might assist you in keeping an eye on and responding to neighborhood talks concerning your company. Then, you can connect with fresh prospective clients who are already in your local area.
5. Build connections
The one special advantage of social media marketing for small businesses is that it enables you to communicate with clients and followers directly. Instead of requesting a sale right away, you can develop relationships over time.
However, as we discuss in Tip 7, you may absolutely use social media to secure a sale up front.
More than 44% of internet users explore brands on social media. Finding out who you are as a brand and what you stand for is a part of that discovery.
It’s a good idea to engage back when consumers interact with your organic content or advertisements. This promotes trust and cultivates a devoted following. You move up in the social algorithms and get new, free exposure when followers share and like your material.
There are typically more than a thousand possible Newsfeed posts available at any given time for Facebook members. One of the indications Facebook uses to determine which of those posts users are most likely to view is engagement. Your followers are more likely to read your content when you build relationships with them.
Building a devoted group through relationship-building can eventually result in ongoing revenues. Although acquiring new customers is excellent, don’t undervalue the importance of customer retention.
In the very different COVID-19 marketing age, 69 percent of respondents to Hootsuite’s Social Transformation survey stated social media helped sustain customer relationships. Furthermore, according to Twitter data, 70% of people believe it’s critical for bands to contribute to the current uplift in positivity.
So how can you cultivate relationships besides replying to comments left by followers on your posts? Try the following tactics:
Establish a Facebook group.
Another excellent technique to foster community and company loyalty is through Facebook Groups.
With more than 37,000 members, the New York Times Podcast Club Facebook Group, which is “a book club for podcasts,” establishes the NYT as a go-to source for information outside of breaking news.
Additionally, it encourages subscribers to keep listening to the chosen podcasts each week, reducing listener attrition.
Make connections with other business owners and influencers in your industry.
Do you feel your company is too tiny to collaborate with influencers? For building brand trust, micro- and nano-influencers with as little as 1,000 loyal followers can be useful.
Plus, they frequently fall well within the price range of more affordable brands.
Lively, a lingerie company, collaborated with influencers to market their bralettes and skincare goods, even if they only had a small, niche following.
The business discovered through analytics-based testing that influencers’ ads that were promoted on their own profiles had a conversion rate and return on ad spend that were each 75% higher.
In your articles and Stories, mention your followers.
Using contests and branded hashtags to gather user-generated content is a terrific method to find high-quality content for your social media feed. UGC is a potent source of social proof as well.
Even better, connecting with some of your biggest fans is made easier by sharing their material on your social media platforms (and naturally tagging them in it).
You’ll receive a notification in your direct messages whenever a fan tags you in an Instagram Story. Make sure to share again; it’s a simple win-win.
Use the interactive features built into social media platforms.
There are several ways to specifically engage your audience, from Twitter polls to interactive stickers in Instagram Stories.
For instance, this summer Panera Bread started a drive to foster relationships in order to promote its new coffee subscription. They declared they would offer free coffee all summer long if 500,000 users responded in the affirmative to their Twitter poll.
More than 588,000 people responded to the poll.
Strong 1:1 relationships with our consumers are the foundation of our brand, according to Kelli Nicholson, director of brand marketing at Panera Bread. She stated on Twitter that the campaign was a crucial tool for determining whether or not people would value the coffee subscription program.
6. Keep an eye on trends
We’re not advocating that you share every meme that becomes popular. (Avoid jumping on any meme that becomes popular.)
To understand what users are looking for when they log into their social channels, it is a good idea to keep an eye on social media trends. This aids in the production of pertinent material that endures.
An continuing Pinterest campaign by State Farm Insurance offers educational material related to significant life milestones like getting a car or having a child. It’s an obvious fit that has helped the insurance industry giant engage with millennials and Gen X because these events frequently have an influence on insurance needs.
Road excursions were a popular topic for online inquiry in the spring of last year as travel evolved from being a global affair to a much more local experience. A collection of Pins about road journeys and how State Farm protected its clients during uncertain times was made by the company.
Currently, these are the top five reasons individuals use social media:
- To keep abreast on news and activities currently taking place
- Find amusing or humorous material
- In order to pass the time
- Maintain relationships with pals
- To send others pictures or videos
Always keep the most recent demands of your audience in mind. It’s possible that what worked last year won’t now.
With the aid of social listening, you may learn what your audience (and potential audience) might be interested in learning about your business.
Because of this, according to two-thirds of poll participants in the Hootsuite Social Media Trends study, social listening will be more valuable in 2020.
How to use social listening for your business is covered in detail in our comprehensive guide.
7. Utilize social commerce to market your products.
Social commerce, or the capacity to sell your goods directly from social networks, is a recent development in social media marketing. And with a global market value of $89.4 billion in 2020, commerce is booming.
18.3% of American adults had used Facebook to make a purchase by June 2020, and 11.1 percent had done so using Instagram.
Even without a website, you may now sell your goods and services using social shopping platforms.
In other pieces, we go into great detail about how to use Instagram Shopping, how to sell on Facebook Shops, and how to make the most of Instagram Live Shopping.
8. Formats should be varied.
Make sure you occasionally change the forms of your social media posts. Try a JPG if you typically share GIFs. Try posting a video if you usually just share static photographs.
Utilize all available social network forms, such as Live video, Reels, and Stories.
One benefit of doing this is that you may discover which formats are more effective for various content categories (more on that below) and social networks.
For instance, it is accepted wisdom that posts with graphics perform better than those without. However, a recent trial by Hootsuite showed that plain text Tweets performed better than ones with images or GIFs.
A few years ago, this was not the case, and Hootsuite would not have found this information if every Tweet included a picture.
Another reason to avoid getting stuck in a rut: Facebook’s algorithm makes use of “content type diversity” to make sure users’ newsfeeds contain a variety of information. Changing up your formats could expand the audience for your material.
Stock picture websites are an excellent source of free, high-quality photos to utilize in your social media posts when you do want to use images but don’t have a great photo collection of your own. Don’t utilize arbitrary photographs from the internet. That is most definitely not acceptable and might land you in serious trouble.
Finally, make sure that every one of your postings is inclusive and accessible, regardless of the format. Start by giving photos alt text and ensuring that movies have captions. Make sure the visuals you share accurately reflect your audience.
9. Put quality before quantity.
You don’t have to use every social media marketing option available to small businesses; it may seem daunting. The creation of high-quality content for a few essential channels is more crucial than being present on every network.
Make sure your social media updates are valuable above anything else. There is very little incentive for people to follow you if all you do is pitch and sell. Keep in mind that connections are the foundation of social marketing.
Stay human. Be truthful. Put up quality stuff. There is no way to fake this; it is crucial.
There is no point in attempting; you cannot do it all. Identify where your audience is currently spending time online and reach out to them there.
At least to begin with, concentrate on using one or two social media platforms really well. Once you’ve mastered those, you can expand your efforts and build on what you’ve learned.
10. Use the proper equipment.
Using technologies that automate or simplify a lot of the effort is the key to using social media efficiently.
There are numerous technologies available to assist increase your productivity. In other words, you don’t need a large social media team to start using social media for business.
Some of our favorites are included below.
Engagement administration
Social media is a tool to interact with customers and fans; it is not a broadcasting system.
Hootsuite and other social media management solutions can assist you in centralizing all mentions and communications addressed to your business in a single dashboard. Without having to sign into each of your separate social network accounts, you can then reply and participate.
Analytics
You may gain a better understanding of your overall social media activities by gathering all of your analytics data in one location.
You can get an excellent overview of how successfully you’re capturing the conversation in your space with Hootsuite Insights powered by Brandwatch. Additionally, you may build thorough reports of your social media performance with Hootsuite Analytics.
Graphics
Use tools that will facilitate the process if you’re having problems producing captivating photographs for your posts.
Among our favorites are VSCO and A Color Story. In our article on how to edit Instagram photographs, we provide more photo-editing apps.
Curation of content
Finding fresh material to offer each day might be challenging. Curating content may be useful. It’s an art form to share excellent posts written by others (with credit, of course).
It can be a fantastic strategy to benefit your followers and maintain their interest. You can find and organize stuff to share with the aid of tools like BuzzSumo and Pocket. In our beginner’s guide to content curation, you may find more tools for content curation.
11. Utilize scheduling and automation to make more time available for interaction.
Back in the beginning of this essay, we discussed planning out your social media material.
Once you’ve established that schedule, you can prepare your social media posts in advance and utilize scheduling applications like Hootsuite to publish them at the appropriate times automatically.
This enables you to set aside a certain amount of time each day or even each week to create your social media material. It’s a lot more efficient than having social media posting interfere with your daily tasks.
You can reduce the number of hours you spend working on social media marketing by using automation solutions like chatbots.
12. Monitor and improve your performance
It’s crucial to monitor what works and what doesn’t as you put your social strategy into action. The results can then be improved by adjusting your efforts.
The aforementioned analytics tools let you get a clear image of your social media activities and can help you keep tabs on the metrics that are most important to you.
It’s time to start searching for methods to improve your plan after you have a sense of how it is performing. You may make gradual improvements to your success with A/B testing.
On the other hand, “Chat Now” encouraged users to ask specific inquiries and leave the chat sequence before it was finished.
Regardless of the size of your company, social media platforms may help you interact with your audience more effectively, find new potential clients, and raise brand awareness. Just begin small if the possibilities seem overwhelming.
Increase your efforts and audience as you discover what is effective. One of the best things about social media for small businesses is that you may always use the tools in the way that works best for your company and your budget.
Utilize Hootsuite to build your small business while saving time. You can publish and plan messages for all of your social media channels from a single dashboard, interact with your followers, and track online brand mentions. Get a free trial now.
