5 Smart Social Media Strategies for Small Business
by Audrey Howes
Small businesses are, well, small… small staffs, small budgets, and short on time. Efficiently leveraging your marketing time and dollars can make a tremendous difference the success of your business. Social media provides opportunities for small businesses to engage with a larger customer base. We know the social media landscape can appear overwhelming so we’ve provided 5 simple strategies to help your small business engage with social media.
1. Learn About the Players
Before plunging your business into the social media waters, you first need to decide where to swim. The most trafficked social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Below are brief descriptions of each of the main players:
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Facebook – The Social Network for All. Businesses can have their own profile page and request likes from users and share media such as pictures, videos, and articles.
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Twitter – The Fast-paced Social Network. Businesses engage followers by tweeting short messages of no more than 140 characters and include shortened links to more information.
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LinkedIn – Business Professionals Network. Post information about your business in resume form. Create and get involved in groups related to your industry to engage in related discussions.
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YouTube – Video Viewing Network. Upload how-to videos, product demos, company and presentations to help your audience get a visual of who you are and what you sell.
To get started, choose 1 or 2 networks for your business to try. Starting off with too much too soon is a strategy destined to fail. Depending on your industry, you may want to research lesser known social networks where your customers or peers are involved. For example, Glozal.com is a social networking site specific to real estate professionals.
2. Brand Your Accounts
Many small businesses miss the opportunity social media gives to boost brand identity and awareness. Every social media platform provides multiple areas to insert logos, images, links, and brand messages. Keeping these areas blank leaves missed opportunities and reflects poorly on your company. Take advantage of your social media profiles, using them as a sales tool to give your customers more information on your products and services and give customers another way to get in touch with you. Adding more information has the added benefit of boosting your find-ability on search engines.
3. Link it Here, Post it There
You put hours into your email newsletter, sent it out, and moved on to the next item on your to do list. Wait! Stretch those hours further by using your email newsletter in the social arena. Start by using the Swiftpage emarketing Social Sharing Features to post your full newsletter to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. You can also include social media links in your Swiftpage emarketing footer to allow your readers to share your newsletter with their social audience. Talk about free advertising! Take it a step further and consider posting articles from your newsletter on your blog or website. If you don’t have a blog, find blogs in your industry and ask about posting your articles as a guest blogger. The more you can interlink your marketing efforts, the more success you will see.
4. Promote and Engage
While it can be tempting to simply use social media to promote, promote, promote, you need to keep in mind that these are social sites. Your followers are interested in promotions, but they also want to hear from you and interact with you. One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make when starting off in the social world is failing to make time to converse with and respond to their customers. Set aside some social time every day to respond to comments, address negative feedback, and join in on conversations. Becoming an active part of the social world will build your brand loyalty like never before.
5. Measure Your Success
Tracking ROI for your social media marketing gives you metrics to tweak your future campaigns and make sure you are investing your time and resources in the right places. Measure your success with Social Media by tracking your growth in followers, likes, and group members. Most social media sites have some analytics available to get a feel for how your network is interacting with your business. Once you get your social media sites up and going, you may want to subscribe to a service such as HootSuite.com that tracks results and helps to manage multiple networks.
Social Media is here to stay. Small businesses who get involved now have the opportunity to build their brand’s image, interact in real time with their customers, and stay ahead of the competition. Using the strategies outlined above will give your business an edge as you enter the world of social networking. “You don't even know what the thing is yet. How big it can get, how far it can go.” from the motion picture The Social Network.
