11 Ways Small Businesses Are Using Social Media Marketing to Drive Growth

 COVID-19 has cut small businesses down. Some have had to shut their doors permanently. A marketing plan centered on social media is your opportunity to re-establish your brand and cultivate a following.

 There’s still time. If you haven’t yet optimized your social media marketing for this new environment, the benefits are still there and the effort will be worth it.

 Let’s look at how other businesses and brands have been using social media in the COVID-19 pandemic. When done successfully, you do two things – re-establish your brand and cultivate growth.

What Makes Social Media A Successful Strategy?

 Being active and having a goal-driven social media marketing plan. This is how you build presence.

 Brands who are using social media the right way have tapped into it as a customer service channel, are generating leads, expanding their audience, driving sales, increasing web traffic, and recording feedback.

 Set goals. Have multiple goals in mind that you can measure. If you don’t know what you’re looking to accomplish, there’s no way to know if a plan is working. Being active isn’t enough. Discover the objectives that would benefit you in the largest way possible.

How Do I Know My Social Media Marketing is Working?

 Watch the metrics. Plugin analytics software. Every minute of every day, analytics are accumulating data. That data will let you know whether your digital marketing is working or not.

 If your social media marketing plan is working, excellent! If not, you may need to re-define objectives, target your audience better, modify your strategy slightly, and change things up altogether.

 You can’t argue with numbers. Your analytics are key in every aspect of digital marketing, with metrics being a guide to what’s working.

How Well Do You Know Your Social Media Audience?

 A critical aspect of social media marketing is a brand’s ability to understand the interests and needs of their audience.

 The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to decide what to post. For example, a BBQ restaurant knows their audience is interested in BBQ and so may post things like healthy BBQ meals, BBQ tips and techniques, favourite BBQ meats, vegetarian BBQ dishes, and more.

 Write out a profile of your target audience. Identify their age, location, gender, likes, needs, behaviors, challenges, and pain points. Fortunately, a lot of this information may already be available in your social analytics.

What Do I Post on Social Media?

 It’s difficult to answer the question of, “What do I post on social media?” because every brand’s different.

 That said, you always want what you write to be high-quality and relevant to your audience.

 Also, don’t stick with a single content type. Change from text to video, images, and graphics. Typically, it’s visual content that gets the most likes, shares, and attention. These are the most popular among every age group on social media.

What is Your Voice on Social Media?

 No matter what type of content you’re posting, ensure it has a consistent tone. Just like you wouldn’t put out three different logos, you want everything posted to fall in line with your brand and image.

 When you have multiple people assigned to social media marketing managing, this can be problematic.

 Everybody has a personality. Your brand should have one and one that is always consistent. Anyone overseeing your social media should have a clear idea of what your brand’s tone is.

Why ‘Selling’ on Social Media is An Ineffective Strategy

 No one joins social media to be sold to. They join to surround themselves with messaging that inspires them.

 Your business shouldn’t be using social media to send out promotional content. Your followers know about you already. You don’t need to sell, sell, and sell. At most, digital marketers recommend keeping promotional content to being no more than 20 percent of what you post.

 The rest of the time, focus on what your audience is interested in. Inform them. Entertain them. Participate in conversations with them. If someone’s looking to buy from you, your information’s not difficult to find.

What Are the Best Social Media Networks For My Business?

 There are 1,000s of social networks out there, from general types to more targeted platforms. Businesses don’t have the time to build a presence on every one. What you choose to put your time towards is key.

• Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world and ideal for relationship-building for every brand.
• Instagram is a Facebook-owned image-driven social network packed with major opportunities to connect with audiences of every age.
• LinkedIn is a business-friendly networking site that is used to build authority and engage audiences with an interest in business and marketing subject matter.
• Twitter is a platform dominated by time-sensitive trends and information relating to breaking news, trending topics, and more.
• Pinterest is a photo-sharing site fantastic for brands with a visual appeal – a la fashion, foods, art, travel, etc. – and a great sales-driver.

How Often Should A Small Business Post on Social Media?

 There’s no rule on how often a brand should post on social media. Be active. For some, this amounts to a post per day or a post every two to three days. For others, it’s less or more. The important thing is to have a reason to post.

Create a content calendar to help you plan your posts and ensure you don’t miss any days. Content calendars are used by many companies and brands who have come out of the pandemic shutdown with stronger presences on social media.

 In your content calendar, define what topics your audience is interested in, list the content you already have that could be used in social media posts, identify what content still needs to be created, and define when and where the content will be published.

Can I Schedule All My Social Media Accounts to Post Automatically?

 Yes, you can! Once you have your content calendar down, sign up for an automation service.

 Hootsuite, Buffer, and others can help manage multiple social media accounts simultaneously and schedule posts so you don’t have to be in front of the computer every time.

 Plan and schedule posts in batches. This makes it endlessly easier to monitor your social media accounts and to get content out quickly without having to spend hours every week posting.

Everything You Do on Social Media Doesn’t Have to Be a Post

 Unfortunately, a lot of brands get into the habit of posting and posting and posting on social media and that’s it. They don’t engage with their audience in any other way. That’s a huge mistake.

 You have to do more than post. Social media is built around the connection. If you aren’t actively fostering relationships through other means, no one’s going to care when you post. Here are strategies to connect to followers on social media and build an audience.

• Comment on your posts.
• Comment on others’ posts as long as they’re relevant to your brand.
• Share relevant information when it’s appropriate to do so.
• Start a conversation.
• Join a conversation.
• Share user-generated content.
• Pose and answer questions.
• Show appreciation to customers.
• Respond to comments on your posts.
• Answer complaints and criticisms

Be Responsive on Social Media to Comments and Questions

 When users are leaving comments, ensure you take the time to respond. This is the most responsible approach to capturing and nurturing leads.

 Users want to see your brand be responsive. When you aren’t responding to queries and comments, you risk losing the attention of that user and motivating them to connect with a competitor.

 Take the time to monitor your channel. You may want to have notifications enabled on your smartphone so you know when a comment is left or have a social media person oversee your accounts. Whether it’s a question, complaint, or detailed comment, a response is important.

 For more information on how to boost your social media marketing, contact the experts at Unlimited Exposure today.