Social Media Guideline for Small Business

Many small or startup businesses in South Africa face challenges in building their business with few resources. As a startup or small business owners, there is a lot to achieve with limited resources. However, with the help from social media marketing, some companies have managed to up their sales all thanks to social media marketing. Traditional marketing drains resources whilst social media marketing is effective, low-cost and gives you a direct line to current and potential clients.

“Nowadays, more small businesses prefer social media marketing to other marketing channels, to help increase their brand’s reach, increase sales, and expand their professional network , ” says digital marketing specialist Kristina Cisnero. Adding to the same sentiments , digital and social media strategist Martin Waxman says that ,”  having a Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account keeps you tuned into your customer base and helps drive traffic to your website or brick-and-mortar store,”. However, it important as new business to choose a relevant marketing channel that offers the best results with the most prudent resources. Below are some of the tips on how small business owners can use social media to grow their business.

#1: Do Your Homework

Behind every exceptional social media, campaign is a great strategy. Social media is all about connecting with your potential customers on a genuine level. Achieving this, you need to define your audience by distinguishing their character, age sex, demography etc. After doing so, crystallize your message based on your audience research, what are the key problems or concerns you can address or solve?  . Then find out which social networks they prefer because not all social media channels are created equally. Each platform has a different primary audience, focus and cadence. It is crucial to understand the differences so you expend your efforts on the right channels.

#2: Get Started, but Start Small

After defining your audience, you now know where to reach them and you have optimized your other marketing touch points. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, which are valuable resources. For starters, use two social media platforms. Martin Waxman says,” The best way to guarantee consistency is to incorporate social media into your daily routine,”. Repeat this for two to three times every day. Remember to use a timer to track your social activity time. In addition, your aim is to help your readers, so give them a tip they can use or share with others that helps them to solve a problem. When you post relevant information, people come to view you as an expert.

#3: Listen and Share

Social listening is an excellent approach to supervise/monitor what people are saying about your brand. Respond to comments, mentions and feedback even if they are derogative but remember to do it professional. Turn those negatives into positives. Good high quality content is the heart of social marketing. The content you post on social media platforms must be relevant and engaging to your audiences. Hermit Johns the media and marketing expert says,” to avoid getting bogged down, set up a process for organizing and aggregating quality content that provides value to your audience.”

#4: Create Your Daily Plan

“With a steady stream of content in the pipeline, you are primed to post and engage on social media,” says hermit. Create an action plan for daily social media activities and follow it accordingly. Also, join communities and groups to target specific demographics. Initiate and participate in more conversations by asking rhetoric questions and posting comments to updates by others. Continue to personalize your brand by welcoming new follower and thank them for following you. Also, be intentional about your social activities and remember that success is about strategy and tactics

#5: Boost Results with Social Advertising

If you want to promote and boost your social media performance, then you must explore paid advertising options. Facebook, Google offers a robust advertising solutions to help small business garner more sales, brand exposure, website traffic and audience engagement. If you are using twitter as your main platforms, you have two advertising solutions: promoted accounts and promoted accounts. Promoted accounts help increase the size of your twitter following and the content helps you cut through the noise and serve your contents to tailored audiences.

Some Final Thoughts

When using social media for your small business, the most vital thing to know is that social media is a marathon, not a sprint. Use this social media guide to start social marketing campaigns. Define your audience and choose the best platform to reach them. Do your research, integrate your social media icons and links, share your (and others’) content and keep track of how things are going. Follow those steps and you will be positioned for success