Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Learn how to leverage social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Snapchat, and more.

Social media marketing is an effective way to reach new audiences, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website. This post will teach you how to use these platforms effectively to promote your business.

Create an Account.

You’ll need to sign up for each platform separately. Some services will blanket create accounts for you, but take the time to build the ones that matter to you.

If you do not have a personal account with any of them, you should create one now. You can use this to manage your business. Buuuutt I have my long time personal Facebook account and I also have a Facebook ads dedicated business manager account to wrangle the 50+ ad accounts I touch each month. Feels better that way, but convenience is a big factor in doing this right.

When applicable create a Business manager Account, like with Facebook, or convert your account to a Business Profile, as is the case with Instagram. These options will give you access to advanced analytics, customer engagement, more post types, and ad perks like optimized and targeted campaigns.

Set up your Profile and Page.

Once you have signed up for each platform, you will need to set up a profile. For the personal profile that manages your business, I’d recommend adding a professional profile pciture and cover photo, completing your bio, and choosing a username or short url if available. Remember to consider who will see this, who you intend on communicating with, and how you want to represent yourself and your business.

For your pages, make sure you complete all of the details including your NAP (name, addresses, phone numbers), about statement, business website urls, and selecting the right categories for your business. Consistency is key here so make a document that has the details you can copy and paste easily.

Build Relationships.

You should also make sure to engage with customers as often as possible. You can do this by responding to comments, liking posts, sharing content, and commenting on other people’s posts. Joining other groups as your business or creating a group for your business is a great way to engage with or build new communities.

The best thing about social media marketing is that it allows you to connect with people who share similar interests. You can create a community around your product or service, which helps you build trust and credibility with potential customers. In addition, social media marketing provides you with a platform to interact directly with your audience. By interacting with them, you show that you care about what they think and that you want to help them solve problems.

Organic and paid customer engagements can be used to reach your customers and their look-a-likes with future ad campaigns. Improving their experience and your ad performance with more relevant ads.

Engage with Customers.

If you want to build an engaged community, you need to respond to customer questions and concerns directly. This will help them feel valued and appreciated, and it will encourage them to share their experiences with others as well. Getting positive reviews or recommendations are invaluable.

Create engaging content and optimize your posts for maximum engagement by using concise captions, eye catching visuals, the right emojis, and relevant hashtags. Be sure to measure the results of your efforts too. Most reporting tools give great feedback on this.

Responding to all of your customer reviews and testimonials is ideal as well. If the review of your product or service is less than favoirable, direct the conversation offline. Don’t hash it out on your reviews page. 🤨

Promote Products & Services.

You should also promote products and services related to your business. For example, if you sell shoes, you might post pictures of new styles and offer discounts on your website. Or, in the automotive business we post the manufacturer special offers a few times throughout the month for each model that is included.

The best thing about social media marketing is that it allows you to target specific groups of people who share similar interests and demographics. For example, if you sell women’s boutique clothing, you can target women, over 35, with an income level, shopping interest, and in-market shopping behavior that allows my clients to attain a click through rate on Facebook and Instagram 4-5x the industry benchmark. At the same time, they attract real paying customers who want and appreciate their products.

Additionally, most social media channels allow you to sync your product data with live updates and listings like Facebook Marketplace. This allows you to sell directly from the social media channel your customers engage with you on, if you wish.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about which social media channels are best for you and your business, if you need marketing guidance, or just general questions about the universe. We create and manage digital marketing campaigns for everything that clicks. 

-Nick