Five Tips for Increasing Your Small Business Social Media Engagement
In today’s age, social media has become an indispensable tool for businesses to advertise, spread their brand messaging, and drive sales.
A whopping 78% of consumers say that a brand’s social media posts impact their decision to purchase. Equally impressive, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business, and 2 in 3 people say that Instagram helps them connect with brands.
If you’re a small business owner, you’ve got to get on the social media bandwagon. Otherwise, the growing number of social networking consumers (over 302 million in the U.S. alone!) will surely discover your competitors first.
Here are our top five social media tips for small business owners who want to build their digital brand reputation and boost sales quickly:
#1 Do your competitor research.
You shouldn’t jump into social media marketing blindly. Take the time to view your competitors’ social media accounts, taking note of the following as you go:
- What kind of content do they post? Pure promos? Customer appreciation? Giveaways?
- What tone do they strike? Serious? Casual?
- What time of day, and how frequently, do they post? Does it work for them?
- How much video content do they publish? What does it look like?
After studying your competitors, create your own plan of attack for social media. Use your competitors as inspiration for what to do, what not to do, and what to do way better!
#2 Every post shouldn’t be a polished, professional ad.
On social media, brand content looks a lot different than traditional print and digital advertising. More and more companies publish casual content to promote their brands – the same kind of media we’re used to consuming from family and friends.
There’s certainly a need for high-concept professional media, too – and you can learn more about that here – but to connect with customers, you’ve got to follow what we call the “casual marketing” trend. Think about how you can incorporate informal, humor-based, and candid content in your feeds.
All kinds of industries – food, tech, finance – are in on the “casual marketing” trend.
#3 Interact with consumers – and do it authentically.
Engaging with customers via social media is paramount. 78% of consumers are willing to buy from a brand following a positive interaction with them on social!
Don’t forget to be genuine in your conversations. Authenticity is a booming social media ideal, with 9 in 10 consumers saying that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support.
Kate Ruda, marketing manager at Nike, said it best in a 2020 Tweet:
#4 Don’t just talk about yourself.
You’re on social media to promote your brand, but that can’t be all you do. To remain relevant, you should:
- Regularly discuss industry news and topics.
- Comment on local, regional, and national headlines.
- Support causes through shoutouts and partnerships.
- Put the spotlight on customers, employees, or just anyone!
Make your brand human. The most successful campaigns are selfless ones.
#5 Add a LinkTree page to push your content front and center.
Here’s a quick chart on where you can and can’t share hyperlinks. (Yup, you heard right. Some social platforms don’t allow link sharing within posts).
This is where Linktree comes in. It’s a popular plug-in that allows you to share a simple landing page with users that displays a curated list of your hyperlinked content.
You can provide access to your websites, promotions, favorite articles, newsletter signups… Pretty much any click funnel you want to promote.
Here’s a guide to other tools like Linktree. Every plug-in looks a little different and prices vary, so see what works best for you.
We hope that these top five tips help you get started with your social media branding journey.
Some additional articles you might like:
A thorough guide to social media for businesses (Business News Daily)
Outsourcing Video Editing and Social Media Posting
Follow These Nine Video Marketing Tips To Increase Your Sales
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