Do you want to grow your small business? You might not think of social media as the way to do it, but in reality, there’s no better way. Social media is an amazing tool for growing your brand and getting noticed by potential customers. Here are some tips on how to get started with a social media strategy that will work for you.
1) Know Your Audience: Before jumping into anything else, figure out who you want to reach with your posts and what their interests are. This will help determine which platforms are best suited for your audience- Facebook or Instagram? A blog or Twitter? Once this is decided, it’ll be easy to create content designed specifically for them.
If you are reading this post, it’s likely that you are a small business owner who is looking for ways to grow your company. One of the most effective ways to do this is by using social media. The following eight tips will help you create an engaging and successful social media strategy for your business. As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need some assistance developing or executing on your strategy.
What is social media strategy?
Social media is evolving. What started as a fad is now the most popular form of online communication today. While its popularity, ubiquity and ease of use has made it among the best tools for business, social media isn’t just about starting up accounts on different platforms. There’s more to social media than just joining networks like Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest and Instagram .
Social media strategy is a process that helps you to plan and implement your social media marketing campaign. For starters, it allows you to make the most out of these sites while avoiding costly mistakes or getting distracted by things that don’t matter. It consists of steps like evaluating your business needs, determining target audience, choosing the right platforms and measuring results.
The aim of this article is to help you understand what social media strategy entails and how it can be used to improve your business’ online presence . So, what exactly does a social media strategy entail? If you’re looking at increasing traffic to your web pages and making yourself more visible to the public, then this article is for you. This guide will be all about giving you a framework on how to set up your very first, as well as your next strategy and what you need to remember when outlining it.
The first thing that has to be understood is that social media marketing can lead to success or failure depending on the person and the approach.
What is a Small Business?
Small Business” basically means that your business is not franchised, so it can be anything from just you making jewelry out of bird bones to NASA engineers building rocket ships which will take us all on holiday to Uranus… No wait, that’s a joke. I wish they would though because Uranus sounds like an awesome place to holiday!
Starting a business is an exciting, but sometimes difficult journey. The small business owner must not only have the knowledge of how to run a successful company, but also be aware of all legal necessities. Starting or running a small business can often require hiring employees and keeping up with tax regulations. Luckily for you, here are four important legal issues every small business owner should know about in order to keep their dream alive!
Starting your own business is a big step, but it can be an incredibly rewarding one. There are many things to consider when starting a small business, including where you want to locate the business and how much funding you will need for start-up costs. However, if you have solid planning skills and are willing to work hard in order to achieve your goals, then perhaps owning a small business is in your future!
Tips on Developing a Social Media Strategy For Your Small Business-
The term “social media” is a bit of a misnomer since social media means different things to different people and encompasses services like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. But no matter how you define it, one thing’s for certain: Social media marketing has become important to companies large and small.
Advertising Age recently reported that through the first half of 2013, American adults made 1.8 billion visits to social networking sites and spent more than two hours per month on those sites. This continued growth highlights the importance of developing a sound social media strategy for your small business as part of an overall marketing mix.
The first step in developing a strategy is to define your goals or target market. For example, if your small business provides IT services for larger companies, you may want to attract more customers and build brand awareness. You’ll likely focus on establishing a presence on Facebook and Twitter as well as LinkedIn, Google+ and other social sites that cater to businesses.
Once you’ve defined your goals and target market, it’s time to brainstorm and prioritize your social media objectives. For example, if you’ve identified Twitter as the service that best reaches your target market, it’s time to focus on generating leads. You may want to set a specific number of leads per month as a goal and create an action plan so you can track which activities produce results.
Your third key step is to develop a communication strategy so you know how and when to support your social media channels with other marketing mediums such as press releases or email. Part of this communication plan is figuring out which day(s) and hours will be the most effective for posting updates, tweets and status updates.
This brings us to an important point: Social media is a long-term commitment and needs consistency and continuity. If you’re just dipping your toes into the social media waters, think about how much time and resources you can commit to these efforts before moving forward.
If you still think social media is right for your small business, take it step by step. For example, start with Facebook as your primary social media channel. Once you create a company page, promote it by inviting your employees as well as friends and family to like the page.
Once you’ve set up your basic Facebook page, start thinking about how to build an audience and generate leads. Here are five tips:
1) Use visual elements — images draw people’s attention and can help tell your story. Use photos or short videos to show how you deliver on the promises you make in your marketing materials, such as customer testimonials and case studies.
2) Write posts that generate emotion — posts with images that convey an emotion (such as humor, happiness or excitement) are more likely to get liked or shared than posts with images that don’t convey an emotion.
3) Ask questions or conduct surveys — these are great ways to encourage engagement among your followers and help you create content for your site.
4) Boost posts, tweets or pins during peak times — each social media site will let you know what time of day is the best for posting updates so you can maximize your efforts. For example, you may find out that Fridays are the best day to tweet about your small business.
5) Cross-promote posts on other social media channels — once you’ve established a presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, make sure to cross-promote posts so they appear everywhere.
Once you’ve mastered the essentials, you can also try to generate leads through deeper engagement. For example, once you have established a Facebook community of customers or prospects, use contests or polls to get your target audience involved. These are great for generating buzz and creating positive word-of-mouth recommendations about your small business.
Strategies for small business-
It is no secret that many small businesses are failing. According to one estimate, half of all small businesses without employees fail within the first five years.
These figures are shocking but not surprising – most small businesses are started by people who have little or no experience in business. The owners may be highly motivated, creative people with many good ideas, but they are often ignorant of the basics of running a business.
Some may not even realize what it is like to be an employee and feel that working for someone else is drudgery or demeaning, so they quit their steady job to become self-employed. They wind up with all the hassles without any of the pay.
As a result, small businesses often suffer from a lack of formal business plans – they simply open an operation and hope it will succeed by being busy all the time. Unfortunately, this is not how it works in real life. Only a small percentage of businesses experience consistent growth year after year without interruption. In other words, most businesses have to struggle just to stay afloat.
Men and women who adhere to the entrepreneurship spirit know that starting a business is risky business, but they are willing to take the chance in order to achieve their dreams of financial independence.
They realize that there are no guarantees, but they also believe that with careful planning and hard work, they can make their dreams come true. This is certainly more sensible than getting a regular job and earning the same income with no prospects for future growth.
Successful entrepreneurs know that success does not happen by accident; it takes planning and management skills to build an enterprise that will stand the test of time. Here are some essential strategies that can help to ensure the success of your small business.
* Avoid self-employment if you are not serious about running a real business. It is easy to get excited about the idea of owning your own business, but this enthusiasm may wane over time, especially if things do not go well at first or you realize it is harder work than you thought.
Before taking the plunge, make sure you are committed to running a business rather than just working for yourself. A real business requires hard work on a daily basis – this is not for people who are looking for an easy way out of the rat race. To have even a reasonable chance of success, you need to be willing to work very hard and make sacrifices in order to get your business off the ground.
If you are not prepared for this type of commitment, then it is probably best to stick with a regular job that provides income and some security even if it does not offer growth potential or the chance to reach your goals.
* Identify a niche and find out what your customers want. The best way to guarantee success with any business is to focus on industry-specific needs; narrow the market as much as possible and try to attract loyal repeat customers who will come back again and again.
Conclusion-
When it comes to social media, the saying “Content is King” couldn’t be more accurate. Blog posts and articles are a great way for you or your team members to share knowledge with followers on subjects that interest them. Videos can also be an effective avenue for content creation when done correctly. The key here is creating quality content in a timely manner that resonates with people’s interests-ensuring they will want to watch, read, or engage in what you have posted about! If this has been helpful and if you need help developing a strategy tailored specifically to your needs, contact us today so we can get started building your brand story together.
