Social Media Strategy for Small Business
Whether you are a small business or a big corporation, there is a space for you on social media. It’s understandable as a new entrepreneur to be hesitant to implement a social media marketing strategy, particularly if you have a small team or a limited budget.
However, there are strategies you can start implementing today that don’t require a social media strategist to introduce your brand to the digital world. Here are some tips on how you can run social media strategies for your small businesses that even the big companies are using:
Create Your Online Business Personality
Big businesses have dedicated social media managers or entire teams who run their social media accounts. This is necessary for large companies due to the number of engagements they encounter on their accounts. However, personalization can get lost in this way, and that’s where small businesses have the potential to do better than big brands.
Because the person behind creating your online brand personality is you or someone from your team, you are more in control of the image you want to develop. You can connect to your customers on a personal level by:
- Humanizing your brand by sharing your personal stories
- Showing “behind-the-scenes’ photos and videos
- Personalizing your responses
- Replying to comments and inquiries personally, which creates a more loyal following
Word-of-Mouth Marketing and User-Generated Content
When you have a great product or service and a loyal following that you’ve developed by being genuinely engaged, your customers will soon do your online marketing for you.
And because you want to regularly and consistently engage with your audience, you’ll feel the pressure of always having new and unique content that is relevant to publish. However, it’s not that easy to always create content, particularly if your business depends on you for more important matters.
You can encourage your customers to talk about your business on social media, giving you word-of-mouth marketing and user-generated content by:
- Directly asking for referrals
- Offering incentives for referrals
- Asking for testimonials that you can use on your social media or website
- Encouraging your customer customers to display your product with photo reviews
- ‘Regraming’ your customer’s Instagram photos or sharing their Facebook posts
Collaborate with Influencers
Social media tools will help you recognize who the influencers are in your target market. With some tools, you can identify them down to your city, which is ideal if your business has a brick and mortar location that relies on customers within your neighborhood.
Huge brands are leveraging the power of social media influencers and so can you. Influencers will bring a lot of attention to your business thanks to their strong following and ability to influence them. Here are the next steps steps once you’ve identified the right influencers for your business:
- Determine how the influencer can help you
- Engage through content interactions
- Develop an authentic relationship
- Propose your sponsored content action plan with the influencer
As a small business, you may feel intimidated and overwhelmed by social media and digital marketing strategies. Or, you may feel that you have to start big to get big results. The great thing about social media marketing is that your plans can develop and become more refined as your business starts to expand.
Sure, the most effective social media strategies do come with a price, but the returns justify the costs. Start with social media strategies or tools that fit within your budget for now and adjust them as your business needs grow.
To learn more about how Engaged Digital Marketing can help you implement your strategy, schedule a free strategy session here: Free Strategy Session.
