Key Strategies for Small Businesses to be More Social with Social Media

We’ve mentioned the importance of interacting with your followers in previous blog posts. We’ll say it again: there has to be more to your social media strategy than simply posting content.

Unfortunately, many brands don’t realize they can’t just promote their products on social media and expect to attract their target audience.

You can have thousands of followers, but if you have nothing entertaining or engaging, social media isn’t going to be a valuable marketing tool at all.

You need to include sharing non-promotional content and interacting with your followers on your social media to-do list each and every week.

How Much Self-Promotion is Too Much?

I like to use the 20/80 rule, a widely-accepted ratio for sales posts vs. other content. For example, if you own a day spa, 20% of your posts could be related to promoting your therapeutic services, products for sale and so on.

The other 80% of your posts should be content that your target audience will find interesting. You could post links to articles, blogs and videos on everything from healthy recipes to self-care tips. Make sure that if you share humorous photos, videos or articles that they’re appropriate for your audience and your industry.

All of your content can be valuable and increase your social media presence if you speak authentically to your followers.

You’re not just entertaining them – you’re increasing the odds that they’ll like or comment on your post and share it with their followers.

Get to Know Your Followers

Part of a good social media strategy includes setting time aside each week (or hiring a marketing company to do this for you) to go into your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts and:

• Accept relevant follower requests

• Look for people in your target audience to follow/Like

• Like, retweet and share others’ content you enjoyed

• Comment back to followers who leave you comments

Whenever possible, get topical with your content.

Building trust with your followers makes them more likely to purchase your products or services and to be loyal to your brand.

If you do build a set of active and loyal followers who engage with you, be sure you follow them back and interact with them on a regular basis to keep them happy.

Access is Everything

If you’re constantly switching between your work and personal devices, it can be easy to accidentally tweet something you don’t want to share on your business page or vice versa. Double check which account you’re posting from before you hit that button.

Larger companies may have several social media pros accessing social media accounts. Even small- and medium-sized companies might outsource their social media strategy and promotion to a marketing company.

To keep your social media presence positive, make sure you take away access from people who are no longer with the company, and if you do outsource your social media marketing, ensure the company you’ve hired does the same.

If you don’t, you could end up with a situation like HMV did in 2013 when a disgruntled ex-employee still had access to their Twitter account.

Yikes. Knowing who’s posting is just as important as what you’re posting.

There’s so much noise on social media, so you need to work hard to get noticed and stay noticed! By creating the right social media strategy for your target audience and aiming for relationships, not followers, you’ll be well on your way to building a better social media presence.