How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media For Marketing?

Hello, small business marketers! We have been looking for the tools & techniques to help small businesses market themselves and are glad to tell you that social media marketing is one of those marketing platforms that is going to solve all your problems. How? Let’s know.

We know that many people aged between 16 to 64 spend most of their time on social media. In fact, it increased in the year 2020 compared to 2019. It is expected to increase even more for upcoming years since the Covid-19 has attacked the global economy. People are concerned about avoiding face-to-face interactions and thereby scrolling down social media looking for companies with products & services they need. It is not only further leading to eCommerce sales at its peak but also clearly states the value of social media for small businesses. 

Undoubtedly, in the coming years, social media will have a vital role in driving customers, lead & sales generation as well as brand awareness. Here, in this guide, we are explaining how you can use various social media platforms to connect with customers and market your business. Keep reading to know:

A Complete Social Media Guide For Small Businesses

The very first & foremost task for small businesses in the process of social media marketing is to set up business pages on each influential platform like Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, etc. Try to keep your business name in the username or URL so that the customers could easily find you. Make connections on those platforms and once you have created your social media profile, you are ready to share information. This is how you can do it.

Recommended Read: Top Social Media Platforms To Promote Your Brand On

Facebook Marketing

There is no need to tell you that Facebook has a massive user base across the world with billions of active users. So, this could be your best starting point to optimize your presence worldwide as you can promote specific marketing campaigns or events. Plus, with the help of paid ad placements, it is easy for your business to get the target customers. Make sure that your Facebook page informs your target audience what your brand is all about. 

Consider This Platform If:

1. You are trying to target a large audience base
2.  You want lead generation or conversion
3. You are looking for a high niche audience 

Content You Can Post:

Facebook ads and video content are two of the most common content strategies that you can adopt for Facebook marketing, reaching customers, and maximizing customer engagement.

1. Facebook Ads - Facebook ads allow you to run targeted marketing campaigns within a specified budget you think is right for your small business. This can help boost your ROI and generate leads & sales for you. Create a Facebook ad by keeping the target audience in mind and develop an attractive visual that tells your brand story. Hire professional SMO services now.
2. Video Content - Apart from YouTube, looking for a different platform to post your videos on. Facebook videos are a great opportunity to bring your brand on the map in an interesting & trendy manner. You can make short, motion graphic videos or guide videos by combining photos, video clips, or texts.

How Often to Post - There is no limit to posting Facebook content for small businesses but you can post once per day. Pro tip: post in the middle of the week and vary your content.

LinkedIn Marketing

When thinking about a business social media platform, LinkedIn is probably one of the most common, popular, and effective. You might not know that LinkedIn has more than 250 million monthly active users and is often preferred by business-to-business (B2B) marketers to share content.

Content You Can Post:

LinkedIn provides a great opportunity for small businesses to connect with other business professionals of your niche. If you have LinkedIn followers on your company profile, they are likely to be concerned about the information and insights you are posting for related business updates. You can post photos, images, and news. blogs or videos focused on your products & services.

How Often to Post - You should post on LinkedIn every week to increase your visibility on social media. Try to post unique, fresh, and trendy content for your consumers to find you.

Twitter Marketing

Since Twitter allows businesses to post content in a short length and it has a massive network of individuals & brands, businesses find it easy to build their brand awareness on Twitter compared to other social media platforms. They don’t have to spend too much time on content generation.

Consider This Platform If:

1. You are targeting millennials 
2. Willing to increase brand awareness and solid customer relationship
3. Target people with a higher level of intelligence 

Content You Can Post:

In November 2017, Twitter officially increased the number of characters in a tweet from 140 to 280 allowing people to think more freely on what to post. People tweet a variety of content including product promotion, sales, or interesting memes, news & articles related to their industry as well as news releases.

How Often to Post - To engage your customers, you can tweet a minimum of three times per day which can further go from five to seven. Tweeting multiple times will drive you more followers.

Recommended Read: Top -10 Key Signs You Need To Hire An SEO Company

Instagram Marketing

It is one of the most popular, trendy, and pleasing social media platforms with millions of active users. Here, you can post images related to your products & services, Instagram short stories on your profile, and many more. Since Instagram is affiliated with Facebook, you can create paid ads directly within Facebook.

Content You Can Post - There are two types of content that you can post on Instagram - stories and carousels.

1. Instagram Stories - Stories are a more attractive, casual, and interesting way of posting content for your targeted customers to see. They get to live for 24 hours and can be personalized in a variety of ways. If you want to drive engagement to your stories, you can “ask a question” or insert background music for your followers to notice. You can also put different emojis, photos or tag a person or a location with popular hashtags. 
2. Carousel Posts -They are Instagram feed posts with creative images that can drive customer engagement. It includes photos, images or short videos, etc.

How Often to Post - You can start by posting multiple times a week or keep it one post per day. It depends on your industry’s visibility.

YouTube Marketing

Until now, we have talked about the most famous social media platforms in terms of business & networking, text-based, and image-based. Now it's time to learn about video-based platforms ie. YouTube. With millions of active users, it is a social media platform with millions of videos being watched daily making it the second largest search platform. It is a great platform to increase the credibility and rank of your brand in search engines by posting videos users are looking for. 

Content You Can Post - 

“How to” is one of the topmost content categories people use on YouTube to learn something. Additionally, they find an educational YouTube video more fascinating than reading instructions.
Plus, you can also post thumbnails with eye-catching visuals.

How Often to Post -You can post as much content as you can generate to bring user’s focus to your business. Don’t compromise with the quality and content.

Recommended Read: A Step-by-step Guide To Move Your Business Online

What’s Next?

Now you know the significance of social media and the main platforms you can leverage to gain social media marketing that works for your small business. But this is not enough. You need to find out how much traffic you are getting on a timely basis and make an informed decision according to account performance.