5 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses
To wrap up our month-long dive into social media marketing, we decided to round-up our top five social media tips for small businesses to master.
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It’s self-explanatory, but worth repeating: when it comes to creating social media content, focus on quality, not quantity. A single great tweet is worth ten in the bush (or something like that). One high-quality video posted at the right time will generate better Instagram engagement than poor resolution GIFs dropped every day. The more time, care, and attention you put into your content, the better response you’ll see. So stop throwing everything against the Facebook wall to see what sticks, and start posting with intention.
In my recent post spilling The Tea on Instagram, I explained the more you engage with IG, the more the app engages with your content – and that same rule applies to every other social media platform. If you’re not getting the likes, comments, and shares you want, the best solution is to start liking, commenting, and sharing other people’s content. Not only does it show you’re an engaged user worthy of similar engagement, it helps expand your network, create connections, attract new followers, and refine your brand voice.
People like action and direction. Give it to them in your captions. This can be as simple as directing someone to your #linkinbio, or as in-depth as provoking a conversation in the comments. The more compelling or response-provoking your CTA, the higher likelihood of engagement. Extra points if it results in high-value responses like DMs and shares. Check out Social Pilot’s 9 Killer Social Media Call to Action for more.
Pro tip: If you frequently post different CTAs, do yourself a favor and set up a LinkTree account. If you’re unfamiliar, LinkTree is a free landing page that displays your most popular links, allowing you to #linkinbio without having to repeatedly update the actual link in your bio. When you’re a small business owner, time-saving hacks like this do make a difference.
For visual platforms like Instagram and Facebook, you now have the option to post “Stories” – a more casual type of content that expires after 24-hours (unless you save it to “Highlights”).
Since Stories are an impermanent form of content, it can be difficult to decide what to post. My advice? Have fun with it. Stories are a place to experiment with content and connect with your followers on a more personal level than the public comments section. Some of my favorite ways to use Stories include:
Running polls that pertain to your business or topical events
AMAs (Ask Me Anything)
BTS (behind the scenes) content
Sharing grid posts to drive post engagement – and to hype up other accounts
Posts, on the other hand, are a place to be strategic. Whether you’re sharing information about a sale on Facebook or introducing a member of your team on Instagram, think of permanent posts as bricks that help build your brand. Unlike Stories, which benefit from an off-the-cuff attitude, Instagram grid and Facebook wall posts warrant intention and attention to detail (no typos!). We’re happy to help strategize your approach to both.
Cheesy, but true! If you don’t love the content you’re creating, it’s not going to get love from others. Why did you start your business? What’s your favorite thing about your work? Where do you see your business in five years? Keep the answers to these questions at the front of your mind when creating social media content and you can’t go wrong.
