Social media has become an integral part of the digital marketing plan. Brands of all sizes, in all locations, allocate a significant portion of their marketing budget towards social media activities.
And it’s easy to see why:
But how can small businesses harness the power of social media?
Well, the good news is that you don’t have to be a big brand or celebrity. Plenty of small businesses use social media to attract people to their brand and convert them into loyal customers.
And that’s what this guide is all about. Inside, you’ll discover why social media marketing is great for small businesses and how you can use it for your small business.
Let’s dive in!
Craft, schedule, & auto-post content to all your social channels, then track analytics and manage interactions from a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
Here are four compelling reasons why your small business should use social media marketing:
Figures from July 2020 showed that over half (3.96 billion) of the total population (7.8 billion) were active social media users:
Furthermore, the number of people using social media worldwide is expected to rise to 4.41 billion by 2025:
So, you have a great opportunity to reach this ready-made captive audience.
Active social media users use social media to research and make purchasing decisions. Latest figures show that 90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media. Furthermore, 75% of people said they had increased their spending with a brand they follow.
Another great thing about social media is that you get immediate access to these potential customers. Not only can you publish content to attract them to your brand, but you can also have conversations by responding to comments and answering questions.
As a small business, you likely don’t have an enormous budget. But thankfully, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to market on social media.
Social media allows small businesses to:
Let’s take a look at a few examples of small businesses using social media.
Here are three small businesses who’ve used social media to launch and grow their brand.
Square Sayings creates promotional products like wall art, phone cases, hats, drinkware, shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers based on their beautiful beaded graphics.
They use Instagram and Facebook to literally share “square sayings” in striking yet straightforward visuals. For example, here’s their Instagram grid:
Everyone loves cute cat pictures – even the team at Loomly – which is why social media is the ideal platform for Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium to promote their London-based cat cafe.
People pay for the privilege of a “socially-distanced” 90-minute session in the cat wonderland to enjoy dining, admiring, or playing with the cats.
The cafe uses Facebook and Instagram to post photos of the cats and their carers to entice visitors:
Who can resist a visit with such friendly, welcoming faces?
Easy Lunchboxes founder Kelly Lester got her idea for compartmentalized lunch boxes from the Japanese Bento box system:
She launched her business without spending thousands of dollars on advertising. Instead, she sent samples to relevant influencers – parents, educators, and schools – in exchange for reviews and giveaways. As a result, she got loads of links to her website and tons of photos and shares on social media.
Since then, Kelly has continued to use social media to grow her brand, especially on Pinterest, where she has 89K followers:
Now, it’s your turn. Follow our 5-part framework for marketing your small business on social media:
Before you rush into producing and post content on social media, you need to set goals and objectives to help you achieve your overall business and marketing goals.
Your social media goals should support your overall marketing goals, which, in turn, support your business goals.
For example:
Some of the popular goals that small businesses try to achieve with social media include:
But your goals can be different, depending on your industry, location, and circumstances. For example, you may want to provide better customer service.
Once you decide on your goals, add some specific metrics so you can measure their success. For example, if you were using Instagram to increase followers and engagement, you might decide:
With your goals and objectives set, you can move onto planning and producing your content.
When you’re planning and producing your content, we recommend using a social media calendar so that you can:
It’s important to remember that social media takes time to bear fruit.
“Building a brand and a community is more like running a marathon than a sprint, and consistency is the most important key success factor in the long run.”
With that in mind, here’s how to build your social media calendar.
The first step is to define your publishing strategy so you always have a content plan you can refer back to.
First up, you need to know your audience demographics and your competitors. Make sure you know the following:
With so many social media networks to choose from, it’s important to select the ones that are most relevant to you and your audience. Plus, it’s better to focus on a couple of key channels rather than covering every single network.
According to Clutch, nearly all small businesses use Facebook (91%), and almost half use Instagram (49%).
Both platforms recently added new features to support small businesses, such as the #SupportSmallBusiness hashtag on Facebook and the Support Small Business sticker on Instagram:
Next, you need to decide how often you’re going to post content on your chosen social media channels.
According to the Clutch survey, one-third of small businesses (33%) post to social media at least once a day.
But you should adjust the publishing frequency based on the platform and your specific marketing needs.
We highly recommend focusing on how many high-quality posts you can commit to posting regularly when you’re deciding on your publishing frequency.
Now you have an idea of your audience and the social channels you’re going to use, you’ll need to consider what type of content you’ll publish and how you want your brand to sound. For instance:
With your publishing strategy defined, you can start filling your calendar with content ideas.
You can start by entering important dates for your brand, such as product launches, sales promotion, anniversaries, achievements, and special events.
After you’ve added your important business dates, you need to consider the best days to publish your other content.
Ideally, you’ll want to base this on your past publishing experience. But if you’re just starting on social media, you could refer to third-party research and studies to select the best publishing days per social media channel.
Finally, you can fill in the gaps with evergreen ideas, such as user-generated content, curated posts, and relevant trending topics.
According to Clutch, the top three types of social media content for small businesses are:
Now it’s time to start creating and customizing content for each of your chosen social networks.
To determine the best publishing times for your audience per social network, you can use previous experience. Alternatively, if you’re just starting, you could make some informed guesses of the best times, such as the daily commute or lunch break, or refer to third-party research studies.
The text element of social media posts is typically short, but different platforms have different character limits and audience expectations, so you’ll need to adjust your message accordingly. Besides the words, you can also include links, hashtags, mentions, and emojis.
The visual element of your content is crucial, especially on visually-oriented platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, as they attract attention and drive action.
Twitter says: “The single simplest thing you can do to get more attention to your Tweets is to add an image or GIF.”
According to eMarketer, over half of Millennials (50.6%) and Gen Z (55.2.%) internet users said their most recent fashion buys were inspired by browsing images on social media:
You can use various visual assets, including images, GIFs, videos, slideshows, carousels, Stories, and Live presentations.
With all your content created, there’s one final step before you hit publish, and that’s to review, approve, and schedule your posts.
Ideally, you want a social media workflow system that allows you to keep track of team feedback, save post changes, and make collaborators accountable for their actions.
Make sure reviewers have a clear preview of the post as it will appear on each social network.
For instance, a full preview like this:
Works better than a snapshot like this:
As well as checking for typos and grammar errors, you’ll want to check your posts for:
Once your posts have been reviewed and approved, you can schedule them at the planned publishing date and time. Scheduling your content in advance gives you more time to engage with your audience, as we’ll see in the next part.
Publishing content is only one half of social media marketing. The other half involves engaging and interacting with your audience. Here are a few ways you can do that:
The natural place to start is by promptly answering questions or responding to comments on your posts.
You can use social listening to check and monitor what’s being said about your brand, aside from comments and replies on your posts. This provides an opportunity to join in conversations and like, share, and comment on posts you were unaware of.
You can stimulate conversations by asking questions in your posts. For example, “What was your first car?” could get people reminiscing and sharing memories, including photos, of their first car.
Micro-influencers allow you to extend your reach and engage with a broader audience. A typical micro-influencer would have from 2,000 to 50,000 followers on social media. But make sure you partner with an influencer in your niche who has a relevant audience.
One of the best ways to engage your audience and build your community is by sharing user-generated content. For example, on Instagram, you could use the Share Feed Posts to Stories feature to include the original username and a link back to the post.
Measuring your performance is an essential part of marketing your business on social media. After all, if you don’t measure your performance, how do you know if you achieved your goals and objectives.
According to Clutch’s survey of 500 small businesses in the US, when tracking social media success:
Once your social media marketing is up-and-running, you’ll be able to get into a cycle of continuous improvement by measuring, learning, and experimentation.
There will always be things you can test and adjust to boost performance, but essentially, you should be able to follow this 5-part framework for marketing your small business on social media.
Small businesses can’t afford to ignore social media as it offers a free, ready-made audience that’s eager to buy from their favorite brands.
If you want to market your small business on social media, follow our 5-part framework for success: