Most small business owners have to spend most of their day on their business. There are some small busi
nesses out there that still need a good explanation of social media, why it benefits their business, and some tips on how to build their brand.
They don’t necessarily have the time to be blogging, doing PR, and marketing their business on social media platforms. Also, they probably don’t have the budget to do TV commercials and billboards, so what can they do?
nesses out there that still need a good explanation of social media, why it benefits their business, and some tips on how to build their brand.1. Use social apps to cross promote your content.
Apps like Buffer and Hootsuite make it easier to share your content across different platforms at once. Using Buffer you can even schedule to share your content several times in the future. You can choose a different message for each so you can use different #hashtags to reach a broader audience. Just pushing the publish button for your content doesn’t mean you build it and they will come. You need to be promoting it and getting it out there.
2. Hyper-local Facebook ads to target customers nearby.
You can set a daily budget for this to make sure you’re not spending too much. You will be able to look at your analytics and see what demographics and target markets are working better for you. This is a great way to get the foot traffic nearby to visit your stores.
3. Provide great customer service on your social media pages.
A study shows that 95% of customer posts on Facebook pages go unanswered. Be there for your customers both online, on the phone, and in person to answer any questions they may have. Others that visit your social pages will see this and it may deter them from your business.
4. Beating out the competition.
Look at your main competitors social pages and see what interactions and mentions they are getting. What kind of activity do they have and how active are they? What kind of content are they sharing, whether it is promoting their products and services or is it non-promotional material? Don’t be overly promotional, as Facebook has announced that they plan to start removing overly promotional posts from newsfeeds.
5. Find the social influencers in your industry.
Do searches in Twitter, Facebook and Google to determine whom the experts and influencers are in your industry. Follow them, share their content, and engage with them. Let them know who you are and what you do. Eventually when you have something to share of your own that will benefit their followers they would most likely be glad to return the favor.
6. Steal your competitor’s followers.
If you don’t have a Moz account, sign-up for a free 30 day trial and use their Followerwonk tool (among all the others). You can put in your top 3 competitors and it will analyze the same followers they they all have, or that 2 of them have. Follow them, engage with them, and chances are they will follow you back.
Doing all of these may take some time and investment, but are well worth it. If you don’t have the time to do them yourself then find a company that provides these services. You don’t need to be on all the social networks, just the ones where your customers are at.
