Social Media for Small Businesses: Make social media marketing work for you.

Are you a start-up or small business ready to expand your audience? Do you want to have a wider outreach for your company?

If yes, then you have to invest your time in Social Media Marketing.

A big concern for start-ups or small businesses is the lack of advertising budget. You want to create awareness of your products/services among top competitors, but you do not have the financial resources to embark on large marketing campaigns.

While typically traditional marketing can be a strain on your pockets, social media marketing can be more cost effective. What you save in money in social media marketing, you make up with the time you invest in it.

Here, I provide 7 easy steps to give you a jumpstart in social media marketing, so you can get ahead of the competition.

1. Research

• Study your competitors, the market, observe how your favourite brands are reaching out to their audiences, what works for them and why. Learning from others is the best way to avoid falling into pitfalls.
• Next, define your audience and segment them into different categories to make communication easier. Distinguish them byage, gender, occupation, income, their hobbies, etc. Put a picture to each category to visualise your target audience and write down what they are interested in and what you can do to solve their problem. Next, plan what will be the best social media platform to reach out to your audiences.

2. Listen:

• This is the most crucial aspect of social media marketing. Social media is an excellent tool in knowing what your audiences are saying about your brand. It is in real time and so, what your audiences are saying is feedback for your products and services.
• Make time to respond to a queries, comments, and feedbacks.
• Treat every negative comment/feedback as an opportunity to turn it into a positive.

3. Link your social media pages:

• Remember to link all your social media pages together. Treat it like one big family that leads to your goals. Provide links or display social icons/plugins prominently in the header of your website for all of your social media pages.
• Your website is your company’s home and each social media platform should direct your targeted audience to your website.
• Blog on your website. This gives your company a voice and allows you to engage your audiences. It is also a great way to direct audiences to your sales funnel.
• Make sure your content is share-friendly by placing a share button on each post. When people read something interesting they are most likely to share it with friends and family. If you fail to provide them with this feature you will be losing the opportunity to reach a wider audience

4. Pick the right channel:

Photo Credit: Ishabel Macleod [The Drum]

• With all your information, it is time to make a strategic plan to execute. Develop an in-house campaign before getting your brand online, as this gives you a direction to achieve your business goals.
• Social media is time consuming! It is tempting to be on every platform but remember this is not about ticking the boxes of the number of platforms you are on but rather maintaining an interaction with your consumers.  Start little, with no more than two social media platforms.

5. Action Plan:

• Keep an editorial/conversational calendar and post in a timely manner. Make an action plan for all daily activities for each social media platform and dedicate at least 15 to 30 minutes daily at the beginning and aim to increase this time as necessary.
• As you grow, make sure to invest more time in your social media activities. We recommend joining online groups to target specific audiences, initiating and participating in discussions and commenting on posts.

6. Social Media Advertising:

• While most of these platforms offer free services, it is a good idea to invest in paid Ads online. This will allow your brand gain visibility quicker on social media platforms.

7.  Analysis:

• Always and continuously analyse the data you get from your social media campaign. Not only does this allow you to measure your performance, but it also gives you the opportunity to improve in areas you have not done so well in.
• Social platforms provide analytics on your activities and so does Google Analytics, which is a great and easy-to-use tool in monitoring traffic and interactions on your different social pages.

Social media marketing gives start-up and small businesses the opportunity to create brand awareness cost effectively and have a wider reach, and the best part is; it is easy to use. It is all about understanding the tools available to your business on each platform. Social media marketing is like a recipe but it depends on what you are cooking. You need to have the right ingredients in your pot to have the best results, so why not join the next Social Media Marketing training as part of our Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing  https://wdc.ng/professional-diploma-digital-marketing/-  or  Digital Marketing Workshop – https://wdc.ng/3-day-workshop-in-digital-apr/