Look: Social media has become the single biggest trend on the internet today. It’s the way we communicate to the masses, and yet still connect with individuals.
With the right social media strategies in place, you can help your business increase its online exposure, connect with your customers, and even boost its profits as a result.
But let’s start with the biggest question first…
Why Social Media?
As a local business, do you even need to use it?
Isn’t all this social mumbo-jumbo just for those damned punk kids? Every generation, age group and gender has found a social media platform that they feel most comfortable using – even grandmas and grandpas. If you have a customer, more than likely they are using social media, so you need to be too. Small business and social media are made for each other. If your business has historically relied on word-of-mouth advertising, or referrals, for the majority of your business, then you’ll see exponential growth using social because it is the first medium to successfully scale word-of-mouth.
Customers expect you to be there
There has been a transfer of power to the consumer – now a potential customer can find out everything they need, or want to know about your products and services before ever talking to anyone in your company. Through using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp, etc, now people use social proof (other people’s experiences) to judge whether your company is right for them. The activity they see, and the recommendations they see online, give them a sense of safety – and they feel confident entering into your sales process. Since the rise of social media’s popularity, and the seemingly simultaneous lifting of the corporate veil, in a few short years we’ve seen a shift in how we as customers interact and respond to brands and companies. And in response, how companies interact with, and are accountable to, their customers.
You can keep it real and show who you are
In a much different way than in years past, authenticity in how a business communicates really counts for something. People don’t blindly trust brands and traditional forms of advertising anymore, they trust their friends; and what their friends post and share on social media. You have to earn their trust.
There is now this crazy little thing called transparency, and companies that embrace it…well, they win the internet.
With this newly found openness, you can gain the appearance of being more personable as an organization. You can provide customers with quicker, more personalized service. You can also detonate your entire company image with one negative post. Just kidding…but almost.
Don’t try to promote misleading information, negatively react, or sugar coat the truth, especially if customers are asking you questions. Someone will find out.
Small businesses have the opportunity to connect with their customers at a level not possible before. Now, customers feel that they can approach a business, ask questions and actually get the answers they need to make an informed decision. And then they talk about it to their friends…bonus.
Make a name for yourself
These platforms allow even the smallest company to create a name for themselves – a brand – which historically would require tons of time, and a very large marketing budget to acquire. Now, If we only had a plan to do that?
Create Your Social Media Marketing Plan
A quick and easy guide for how to use social media for a small business. Follow along with the posts in this series to level-up your social media marketing.
Conclusion and pro tips
Some tips to get your social media plan done
Put it on your calendar Set aside time each week to get your social media tasks done. Automate your social media process Use social media management tools and software and setup your shares to automatically go out at a predetermined time.
- BufferApp
- Hootsuite
- IFTTT
- Tweet Deck
- Socialflow
- Sprout Social
- Etc…
To get started we recommend (and use ourselves) BufferApp.com. It’s completely free and is super easy to use. Combine that with ritetag.com to help you get insights on hashtags that will get the most exposure for your updates.Leverage other people’s content You could write a blog about an awesome infographic, embed a helpful video or do a roundup about articles around a similar topic and push these articles out to your social media pages. Email is still the most important engagement channel. Your email list is your greatest marketing asset. If Facebook or Twitter go down tomorrow you will always have your list and won’t lose contact with your followers. Even though we love these platforms, we don’t own them, so we are all digital sharecropping. Owning your list is a true asset to your business. You should send out regular emails to your database, and use social media to drive traffic to your site to continually grow that email list. Use software like Mailchimp, Aweber or Constant Contact to setup your emails and manage your email database. Leverage outside resources Get someone else to transcribe your videos, or have a writer put your ideas or outline into an article for you. Take advantage of free tools and software to help you get more done. Some easy design tools:
- Canva
- Picmonkey
- PowerPoint
- Pixlr
You can use these to create blog graphics, ebooks, promo images, or other promotional or sales material you can use for your marketing efforts. Use Bit.ly or tinyurl to shorten your URLs (trackable), and Twitter and Pinterest are great for finding content to curate (other peoples content). Just search with a hashtag plus your topic (#lawncare, etc) to find the latest info floating around about your industry. This is also a good way to find influencers in your industry that you can follow for more content ideas. If you are new to social media, set modest goals and improve over time. Start simple with one target audience, one goal, one offer and one primary social media channel and you should see your plan succeed.
Need help with your social media marketing?
Get in touch today and we can help you craft your perfect social media plan.
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