7 Tips for Crushing Your Social Media Marketing
Struggling to make an impact online? Here are 7 tips to ensure your small business is making the most of its social media marketing efforts.
Struggling to make an impact among the million other dentists or shoe designers with an online presence?
Perhaps it’s time to revisit your small business or organization’s overall social media strategy. Not only can social media marketing help you with brand awareness and finding new sources for leads, but it can also open up new avenues for growth if done correctly.
Following are some tips to ensure your small business is making the most of its social media marketing efforts:
1. Choose the right platforms
Sometimes less is more. Not every business needs to be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram AND Snapchat.
Instead, it’s better to pick the two or three platforms that your target audience is most likely to use and then focus your efforts on those networks.
Looking to reach B2B customers? Make sure your LinkedIn and Twitter game is on point. Offering a product/service for Millennials and Gen Z? Prioritize Instagram and TikTok.
2. Create — and stick to — a content calendar
While some of the most memorable social posts of all time have been spontaneous (see: 2013 Oreo tweet during Super Bowl XLVII), having a consistent and regular posting schedule is key to growing your social media.
IMHO, the easiest way to do this is to invest in a social media scheduling program (popular options include Hootsuite, Sprout Social & Loomly). Not only do these programs let you plan out and schedule your posts in advance, but they also offer a wealth of other features — including list management & rapid response tracking — that can help you manage all of your social media channels in one place.
3. A picture (or video) is worth 1,000 words.
Social media is built around imagery. In fact, some networks (looking at you, Instagram!) won’t let you publish a post without a video or image file attached to it.
Make sure that you are using high-quality multimedia content in all of your posts. Spend the extra time to make branded graphics (Canva is a social media marketer’s BFF) or to size your photos for each individual network. The better your imagery, the more likely you are to be seen as a credible brand worth following on social.
4. Audience engagement is key
Have a conversation with your followers. Take the time to engage with them by responding to comments and messages, asking questions and polls, and sharing/reposting user-generated content.
The more you make your followers feel as if they are part of the conversation, the stronger your relationship with them will become — ultimately resulting in higher brand awareness for your business.
5. Leverage influencers (when possible)
Don’t be afraid to pair up with influencers or likeminded figures on social to help build out your audience. Influencer marketing — particularly on social media — can do wonders for increasing your brand’s credibility and exposing you to potential customers who wouldn’t have heard of you otherwise.
6. Offer exclusive promotions on social media
Odds are, you’re probably offering different types of promotions off-line. So why not create special discounts or offerings for your social media followers?
By creating unique discount codes or offerings that are only publicized online, it’ll provide additional incentive for your customers to follow and/or engage with your social media pages.
(It’ll also help you with your tracking efforts, which leads us to…)
7. Analyze your results and re-evaluate as necessary
As with any other marketing effort, it’s important to track your progress and measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Knowing your engagement, reach, impression, and conversion metrics — among other things — will allow you to refine your strategy and make informed data-driven decisions for the future.
There are several sources for tracking social media analytics:
Native reporting tools provided by the platform itself (Facebook, Twitter etc.)
Google Analytics (make sure to use UTM codes if you do this)
Your social media management program (see: Tip #2)
Now, it’s just time to sit back and watch as your likes and follows come in…
