10 Social Media Strategies for Small Businesses

With over 3.5 billion users worldwide, social media has emerged as a powerful marketing tool.

Social media offers businesses a way to connect directly with customers, expand brand awareness, grow leads, and increase sales. Through social media channels, companies can develop long-lasting relationships with current and potential customers. According to Oberlo, 73% of marketers believe that their business has benefited from social media marketing.

Whether your business already has an established social media presence or is just getting started, managing social media can be challenging.

Implement these 10 strategies into your social media marketing plan to enhance your company’s social media pages, grow your audience, and really benefit from the marketing potential of social media.

1.Set a Goal For Your Social Media Marketing

Get clear with what you’re hoping to achieve with your social media accounts. Do you want to drive more traffic to your website, increase your local customer base, or build a community around your brand? Whatever it is, defining your objectives will help you establish a foundation for your social media strategy and provide you with direction for your content creation.

2. Know Your Audience on Social Media

Who are you trying to reach through your social media channels?

• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What is their income and education level?
• What are their interests and aspirations?

The answer to these questions will help you decide on the type of content you should create. If you want your content to appeal to your viewers, you need to understand them first. The better you know your target audience, the easier it will be to create content that they will enjoy.

3. Decide on Platforms For Social Media Marketing

While your business may be active on various social media sites, it is essential to recognize which specific platforms will be the most beneficial for meeting your goals.

Figure out which platforms your target audience uses.

You can look at the primary demographics of different social media sites and see where your target audience fits in. You will want to focus on platforms that your target audience is the most active on and create quality content for that platform.

For example, Hootsuite reports that 32.4% of Facebook’s users are aged 25-34. So, if your target audience includes millennials, you should invest in creating a strong Facebook page.

Additionally, you should figure out what platform is the most compatible with your business.

This can be determined by several factors. Is your business client based? Will your business benefit more from a visual platform, like Instagram or Facebook? What platforms are your competitors using? Deciding on platforms to focus on will require some research. Still, it will save you from investing time and money into platforms that will not help you achieve your goals.

4.Get Familiar with the Social Media Algorithms

A social media algorithm decides what content to show users. Algorithms gather previous likes, shares, and browsing histories of users to determine the users’ interests. They then find content similar to those previous interactions and show it to them by putting it on their timeline and exploring pages.

While algorithms vary among different platforms, the algorithms’ primary function remains the same; to keep users on the platform by showing them more content that they like. So, suppose the content you produce has high engagement levels and keeps users on the platform. In that case, the algorithm will show your content to other users by putting it on their timelines and explore pages.

Algorithms are constantly changing, so it is vital to keep up to date with developments to understand how to get the algorithm to work for you.

5. Post Valuable Content

You want to develop high-quality content that is engaging for your viewers.

Find out what your viewers want to see and generate creative ways to convey your message. Your social media pages should have more than just basic information. You want to create an experience for your viewers and get them excited about your content.

Some ways to add value to your content:

• Share tips
• Host polls
• Contest
• Short videos
• Q&A’s
• Share quizzes and surveys

High-quality content will set you apart from your competitors and develop strong brand loyalty.

6.Make a Social Media Calendar

Scheduling your posts will help you plan your content and keep your sharing consistent.

You don’t want to post every day for one week and not at all the next. A calendar will help you maintain the right balance with the amount of content you are sharing. If you post too frequently, you might overwhelm your connections, but your engagement might be lacking if you post too little. A schedule will help you stay on track with your goals, save time, and prevent you from rushing to find content last minute.

Many digital marketing tools allow you to plan your content and schedule when content will be posted.

7.Paid Promotions and Giveaways

A great way to grow your audience and spread brand awareness is to provide an incentive for interacting with your profile. Hosting a contest is a great way to encourage users to connect with you. The rules of your contest can align with your social media goals. For example, if your goal is to grow your connections, every share could be an entry into a draw.

On most social media sites, businesses can pay to have their content shown to users. This is an easy and effective way to grow your social media audience. Paid promotions on social media sites are usually less costly than other marketing expenses.

8 Location Tags & Hashtags

Location tags can be a great way to reach local customers. By tagging your content to a location, your posts will be shown anytime a user searches the location tag. It will also let your viewers know where you are without including your location in your content.

Similar to location tags, when you use a hashtag, your content will show up when a user searches for the tag. Instead of connecting your content to a place, hashtags will connect your content to a specific topic or theme. This can be an effective way of attracting new connections in your niche.

While hashtags can be beneficial, they can also be counterproductive. If you use too many hashtags, your account might be flagged as spam or look messy to the viewer. If you use extremely popular hashtags, your content might get buried under all the other posts. Do some research into hashtags that are relevant to your business.

9. Track your Performance

Many different analytics tools can help you better understand your social media performance. Analytics can provide valuable insights into digital marketing campaigns including:

• What content performs well among viewers and what doesn’t
• User demographics
• Peak engagement times
• Growth
• And other essential insights that will help you understand the effectiveness of your current social media strategy.

Once you dissect the analytics data, you will be able to create more content specific to your audience’s preferences.

10. Be Authentic

Social media is a great place to demonstrate your brand’s personality. Show your viewers that you are more than just your business.

Your social media should be an honest representation of your business. This will build trust with your viewers and allow them to get to know your business on a personal level. To be authentic on your social media accounts:

• Listen to what the users are saying.
• Respond to your connections.
• Don’t always be trying to sell something.
• Show “behind the scenes” content.
• Stay true to the core values of your business.
• Be personable.

With social media being a primary source for customers to gather information on a business, your business needs to develop an effective social media strategy. It will likely require some trial and error before finding the social media strategy that works best for your business. Even then, you will need to revisit your social media strategy regularly to adapt to the dynamic changes of the social media world.