Using Social Media to Market Your Small Business

Have you joined the social media band wagon to promote your business? People are online now talking about your area of expertise and if you don’t engage in these conversations you’re going to miss out on a large proportion of your prospects.

Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram are all free platforms for businesses to promote their brand and engage with their audience on a local and a global basis.  However, don’t assume you will get instant marketing success or that it won’t cost money.  There is a well known saying that “All good things come to those who wait” and it’s true for using Social Media to market your business. Don’t forget, your time is money so invest it well.

It can take three to six months to get proper traction on social media. There are things you can do to help speed up the process but let’s start with the basics to get you started:

• Find the best platform to reach your target audience.
• Find friends and followers by searching for keywords
• Join in with conversations about your field of expertise. A good way of finding these is via social listening tools to follow keywords and hashtags.
• Build relationships with influencers. Engaging with influencers early on can help you in the long run as it will help them remember you when you need approach them.

Some do’s and don’t to engage with your target audience

Do’s:

1. Do ask questions to start a conversation
2. Do provide value – publish tips and insights for your area of expertise.
3. Do provide shareable content – A blog is a good way to do this and will drive traffic to your website.
4. Do add interest  – Reflect your personality in your posts, try fun facts about your area of expertise.

Don’ts:

1. Don’t oversell.  Adopt the 1 in 7 rule where only 1 out of every 7 posts promotes your business.
2. Don’t ignore copyright and privacy legislation or you could end up in hot water.
3. Don’t ignore the results.  Analytics can tell you a lot about your audience, which topics and approach work best for your audience. 
4. Don’t complain or write negative comments about a specific person or use photos of people without permission.

1. Aim for 50% original content (your tips/tricks, interest) and 50% content shared from others – your potential influencers for example.
2. Plan your original content ahead of time.  We are seeing great success with contentcal.io as a way to plan our content
3. Spend 20 – 30 minutes a day on each channel with a business purpose – don’t get dragged into posts from your personal contacts which are fun but be mindful of your time
4. Create a list of trusted influencers or places you are likely to get information to share which would be of interest to your audience.  This can be your ‘go to’ place when sharing content.

Need some help getting started with your social media marketing?  Why not take one of our e-learning courses or if you can’t face doing it yourself, talk to Concise Digital about doing it for you.