How Small Business Owners Can Use Social Media To Improve Sales And Grow Their Business

Failure to have an effective social media strategy can be detrimental to your small business.

While you may not think your lack of a social media presence is having an impact on you today, it will eventually catch up with you down the road. So don’t wait until it’s too late to get started.

You’ve got to keep up with the latest social media trends and apply them to your small business.

If you’re a small business owner not quite convinced you need to use social media to improve your business, you’ll benefit tremendously from reading this guide.

If you are currently using social media to market your small business but not seeing the results you hoped for, I’ll steer you toward the path to success.

Follow the tips below to maximise your business potentials on social media 

Create Profiles On Many Social Media Platforms:

If you have a Facebook page for your business, that’s great. You’re headed in the right direction. But Facebook alone won’t be enough to maximize your reach. You need to establish a presence on as many social platforms as possible.

Less than half of small businesses use Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to market their brands. Furthermore, less than one-third of owners are taking advantage of LinkedIn and Snapchat. Before you rush to create a profile on all the channels listed above, it’s important you understand your target market.

For example, LinkedIn is more beneficial to B2B companies. That’s because 80% of leads generated by B2B brands come from LinkedIn. Let’s say your small business is targeting Generation Z as your primary audience. Well, 71% of Gen Z uses Snapchat at least six times each day. More than half of this generation uses Snapchat over 11 times daily.

But if your small business is trying to generate leads from Baby Boomers, it wouldn’t make sense to prioritize Snapchat.

For the most part, starting with a Facebook profile is a safe bet. With nearly 1.5 billion daily active users, you can assume your target audience has a presence there.

After you create a Facebook page, you need to determine which other channels are suitable for your brand and marketing strategy. I’d recommend creating a YouTube channel.

Define Your Marketing Goals:

You can’t just blindly start posting content on social media without some sort of rhyme or reason. Before you do anything else, you need to identify your marketing goals.

While lead generation, brand awareness, and customer engagement are all good reasons to use social media, it doesn’t mean these should be yours.

You may be using social media to provide better customer service or directly drive sales.

Whatever your reasons, make sure they are clearly defined. Think of it as you would of any other marketing strategy for your company.

You wouldn’t run an ad on the radio or a print advertisement without establishing a goal first, so you need to treat your social media strategy the same way.

Once you decide the purpose of your social media campaigns, it will be much easier for you to come up with content to post. As we’ll discuss soon, it can be tough to think of ideas for new posts.

Post Content On A Daily Basis:

Now that you have a social media profile on multiple platforms, you’ve got to make sure those accounts are active. If someone stumbles upon one of your pages and the most recent post was from three weeks ago, they aren’t going to follow you. What’s the point of following a brand that doesn’t post content?

Furthermore, think about all the people already following your business page. These people won’t just navigate to that page on their own to see what you’re up to. You need to post new content that will appear on their homepages and timelines.

This is your opportunity to stand out from your competitors. If your competition is only posting once a week or just a handful of times per month, it will be easier for you to make a lasting impression on your followers by posting daily.

Each time you post new content, you remind your followers that your brand exists.

In addition to posting content daily, it’s also important for you to respond to your customers. I’m referring to direct messages as well as comments.

Sometimes, instead of posting writeups, you can make use of live videos to promote your products/services.

Make sure you don't spam with your contents, otherwise, you may lose your subscribers.

Give Consumers A Reason To Follow Your Page:

In order to have a successful social media marketing strategy for your small business, you need to have lots of followers. Otherwise, nobody is going to see your content.

 Once you’re able to grow your social following, it will be easier for you to convert your followers into customers. That’s because consumers are more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media.

Here are some of the top reasons why people would be interested in following your small business on social media:

• they’re curious about your products or services
• you offer exclusive promotions
• your content is entertaining
• they need to reach a customer service representative
• you offered an incentive
• their friends or family follow your brand

So make sure your content is worth following.

 As you’ve seen, getting more followers will ultimately increase your chances of driving more sales.

Form Relationships With Social Media Influencers:

When people think of social influencers, they think of celebrities and athletes. But partnering with a celebrity probably won’t fit within the marketing budget of a small business.

However, influencer marketing is the fastest growing method for customer acquisition in the digital world.

So how can a small business afford to implement a strategy like this? You can find social influencers who are much more cost-efficient than a celebrity.

Try partnering with micro influencers to increase your product credibility. This type of influencer may not have millions of followers, but you can get them to post content about your brand for a small amount of money. You may even be able to get away with offering them just free products in exchange for a post about your brand.

This strategy is effective because micro influencers have stronger engagement metrics with their followers. That’s because they are just regular people.

Implement Automation Tools:

As a small business owner, becoming a social media content manager wasn’t something you planned for, and it might feel as if there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to handle this.

Using an automation platform will allow you to schedule your posts in advance. You can take time once at the beginning of your week to set the dates and times for your posts in the future.

Another benefit of using an automation tool is the ability to respond to messages in a timely fashion. Rather than having to check each social platform individually for these messages, you can find software or in-built automation system that sends all messages to one inbox. Then you can reply directly from the software.

I highly recommend these tools for small business owners who feel they don’t have enough time to effectively manage their social media profiles. Don’t let that impair your marketing strategy.

Encourage User-Generated Content:

Let’s say you run a contest on Instagram where participants have to post pictures featuring them using one of your products.

Your small business just got exposed to a wider audience. Anyone who follows people who enter the contest will see your brand being promoted, even if those people don’t follow you.

A whopping 92% of consumers say they trust a referral if it comes from someone they know. UGC is a great way for you to get more followers and ultimately turn those new followers into buyers.

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