Social media is one of the best ways for small businesses to drive sales, but it can be a bit intimidating at first. With so much to learn, many business owners are left wondering how to get started, and if it’s the right move for their business. I’m a firm believer that every business, no matter how small, should be on social media. Without it, you’re definitely missing on both marketing opportunities and customers. Today, I put together my top 5 tips for getting started with social media marketing, and how you can start using it to get new customers.
Start Small
There’s a ton of social media platforms out there; Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Twitter just to name a few, so it’s important to get your priorities straight. You don’t want to stretch yourself too thin, so for most businesses it’s best to focus on only a handful of platforms to start. It’s far better to really focus and put out good content on 1-3 platforms than to do a half-job on 5.
What platforms to focus on depends a lot on who your audience is and what types of content you can produce. If you’re already a very good video producer then Youtube is going to be a home run for you. It’s also important to consider your business’s demographics and how that lines up with a particular platform. Not all platforms cater to the same people and it’s important to go where your audience is.
Once you get a strategy down it’s fine to branch out to more platforms, but starting small can be a good way to get into the habit. Spending 10 minutes each day writing a Facebook post is much easier than trying to work in posts across 5 platforms in an hour.
Build Relationships
One of the key benefits to businesses, especially small ones, using social media is the ability to foster relationships with your followers. Social media gets you right in front of people that are interested in you, and this gives you a great opportunity to engage with them that you don’t usually get from more traditional marketing avenues.
It’s important here to foster and continue to build that relationship. This includes things like responding to messages and comments from your fans and followers. A few minutes a day to show your followers that you care goes a long way. Someone who feels taken care of is much more likely to do business with you and recommend you to their friends.
It’s also good to show the person behind the business. Many people are much more likely to do business with someone they know, and social media is a great way to build that. Not everything has to be all business, let your personality or your brand’s personality show through in the posts you make.
Focus On Content not sales
One of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of businesses do on social media is treat it solely as an advertising platform. I’ve seen countless times businesses plaster their newsfeed with sales and products, only to then wonder why their engagement is so low. Going that route is a sure road to failure and misses the point of social media marketing.
The real way to use social media is to build those relationships earlier and provide quality content. Providing things your followers actually want to read or watch is key to winning them over. If you just bombard them with ads they’ll eventually become desensitized to your content.
If instead, you focus on providing good content you’ll eventually build up a following that genuinely enjoys your posts. This makes them more likely to actually look at your ads when you do post them, and also helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field. Both of these are the keys to driving conversions, and happen because you didn’t try too hard to sell.
Stick To a Schedule
Probably the most difficult thing with posting is to be consistent. It can be difficult to stay up to date on your content, but it’s important to seeing results. If you lazily post here and there don’t expect your results to be great.
When you make your schedule you don’t necessarily have to post each and every day. I always recommend those just getting into it to pick 3 days to start and post on those days each week. You can always ramp up later. Whatever you do, really focus on being consistent and do your best to post on all the days you committed to.
Another key idea here is quality over quantity. It’s better to make a few really killer posts than a bunch of garbage ones. Remember, anyone on a social media site is constantly being bombarded by content. If yours isn’t up to par it’s going to get lost in the noise.
Measure the results
Lastly, you always want to be sure to measure and track the results. There’s no use putting in effort if you can’t tell if it’s driving new business.
The easiest and quickest way to get started here is using something like Google Analytics. First off, it’s free, but it also provides valuable insights into your website visitors. If you’re driving people from social media to your site for example, an analytics package like this will tell you exactly how many visitors your efforts have achieved.
You might also want to integrate with site specific tracking like Facebook’s pixel. This is especially important if you’re running any type of ads on the platform. Check with each platform to see what types of tools they offer.
Lastly, you might also just do the good old fashioned thing and ask. Many website forms include a field for “How did you hear about us”, which is a great way to see your social media marketing effort results.
Getting Started with Social Media Marketing
There’s still so much more to learn! Hopefully these brief tips have inspired to you and showed you how to better use social media to grow your businesses. If you’re not already on a few platforms get out and pick 1-3 to focus on for the next few months. Then, put these tips into action! If you don’t someone else will.