As a small business owner, you may be curious about the benefits of social media marketing. According to a report by We Are Social (Jan 2023), 81% of Australians use at least one social media platform and spend an average of 2 hours per day on social media.
Meaning that with social media marketing, your business can achieve different goals such as reaching a large audience, engaging with them, attracting potential customers to your website or landing page, increasing conversion rates, building trust, educating your audience, and enhancing brand awareness.
However, to accomplish these objectives, you must follow a clear and effective process to connect with your audience on their preferred social networking platforms.
Selecting the Best Platform for your Small Business
Social media marketing is an essential strategy for any business that wants to reach and engage its ideal customers online. But not all social networks are created equal. Different platforms attract different audiences and offer different opportunities for interaction. That’s why you need to know where your customers hang out and what they expect from brands like yours.
You might start by focusing on the one or two platforms that best suit your business goals, audience preferences, and demographics. Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere at once. Instead, create a strong presence on the platforms that matter most to your customers. To do that, you need to set up a professional and attractive business profile.
When choosing your business’s best platform, keep in mind:
- Facebook users often seek suggestions and feedback from their Facebook connections rather than finding information and learning about businesses. So, if your business is seeking to build a community or increase brand awareness, Facebook is a great platform to consider.
- Instagram is perfect for keeping up with the latest trends and brands through visual media. The majority of users are between 18 and 35 years old. So, if your business is focused on e-commerce or visual marketing, it is essential to have a presence on Instagram.
- On TikTok, users primarily login to find entertaining and emotional content related to their interests, which makes it a favourable space for influencer marketing. In addition, almost 60% of the users are female, and overall speaking, the majority of users are 10 to 19 years old. So, if your business sells products or services to audiences with similar demographics, it might be a good option to consider.
- The primary user intent of LinkedIn is for professionals, aged 46 to 55 on average, to network with others in their industry. As the top social network for professional networking, LinkedIn stands apart from other social networks like Facebook or Instagram, and due to its focus on professional networking, it’s an ideal platform for recruiting, educational topics, and B2B marketing.
Craft Organic and Paid Strategies
The objective of organic social media marketing is to create trust, loyalty, and engagement with your audience, establish your brand identity and voice, and offer value through informative, entertaining, or inspiring content.
Paid social media marketing involves paying for advertisements on social media platforms. The aim of this type of marketing is to reach a specific and targeted audience who may not yet know about your brand or products, thereby increasing brand awareness, followers, leads, or sales.
Our recommendation is that you use a combination of both organic and paid tactics together, as they may complement each other greatly. For instance, you can find an organic post that has performed well and boost it to increase its exposure to your intended audience.
Plan your Content in Advance
The best approach you may have to address the planning and scheduling of your content is through a content calendar. It is a visual representation of your content strategy that shows what, when, where, and how you will publish your content. It may help you to:
- Organising your content ideas and themes.
- Assigning roles and responsibilities to your content team.
- Tracking deadlines and progress of your content projects.
- Coordinating your content with other marketing activities and events.
- Reviewing and updating your content plan based on feedback and data.
Remember to always customise your content calendar according to your specific needs and goals, and ensure to include in your content calendar:
- Content title or topic
- Dates and times of each post
- Content format (e.g., blog post, video, photo, infographic, etc.)
- Content goal (e.g., awareness, engagement, conversion, etc.)
- Content keywords and hashtags
- Content tone and style
Grow your Audience by Engaging and Providing Value
To boost your social media presence, begin by engaging with your current customers, vendors, colleagues, and employees. Additionally, make sure to advertise your social media profiles by integrating links and feeds on your website.
Collaboration with others is a great way to increase your visibility and connect with your target audience. You can achieve this by engaging with their profiles through liking, commenting, or participating in private groups. We highly recommend against purchasing followers, as this tactic is generally not effective and can result in penalties or even a ban from platforms like Instagram.
Monitor and Optimize using KPIs
Understanding your core social media KPIs helps you adapt your campaigns to suit your goals and your customers. By tracking the right social media KPIs, you can improve your marketing strategy and achieve better results for your business.
Once you start gathering data on how well your social media marketing efforts are performing, use that information to enhance your future posts or campaigns. For instance, you can determine which categories and layouts (such as videos, pictures, picture carousels, etc.) generate the highest number of clicks, likes, or comments and then continue developing similar pieces of content.
Need help with your social media and content marketing? Learn how Outsourcing your Content Marketing could be beneficial for you!
