If you are an owner of a small business, then you must know the struggles of presenting your brand on the market and making it stand out among the ocean of ideas. At some point, you have surely started digging around social media yourself, harvesting the fruits it can feed your business. And for a valid reason.
In the last 20 years, social media has increased its reach all over the world. Nowadays, only 34% of people under 30 source information from TV, and half of the population uses social media to share content.
With such figures in mind, you can imagine what one ad on a social media platform can do for the rise of your small business. It can actually skyrocket it to whole new territories.
To reach that milestone, read on to learn why small business social media awareness is the key turning point on your way to success.
Defining Small Business Social Media Strategies
Social media for small businesses can play a crucial part in their development as a brand. In fact, the marketing around social media implies just that – creating a detailed plan of action regarding the social media presence of your business.
And as with every plan, this one also consists of steps that bring you closer to your goal. Thus, you have to take into consideration a few things when deciding to enter the marketing world of social media. Here are the basic small business marketing tips to get you started:
• Define your goals;
• Choose your social networking website;
• Develop your small business brand voice;
• Execute it and manage your posts;
• Monitor your progress and compare your goals.
Creating a Social Media Strategy for a Small Business
Having a solid social media strategy means that you have dipped in the pool of small business marketing tips and extracted what suits you most. These tips are a crucial part of your long-term success.
The best thing about social media is the fact that it is not pinpointed to one specific location, meaning anyone from anywhere can access anything. For your small business, this means huge social media awareness.
Below, we will guide you through the most important steps in order for you to create and execute your social media strategy.
Determine Goals to Design Social Media Strategy
What do you want to gain from your social media strategy? Is it more visibility? Or is it boosted sales? Do you plan on transferring or expanding to online sales of your products?
Most people turn to social media when they want to increase the awareness of their small business. Ergo, social media awareness has proven to be an effective way of gaining new clients.
Nonetheless, you should always make sure that your goal – regardless of what it may be – is SMART. This stands for:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timely
With this acronym, you will identify your goal and you can get a broad picture of how you can achieve it – and when.
Choose the Most Suitable Social Media for Your Strategy
Nowadays, social media platforms have evolved to the point where they are not just used to connecting with your friends or relatives. They are a powerful tool when it comes to raising social media awareness for small businesses.
Choosing the right platform may be overwhelming considering their vast number today.
That is why we made a detailed rundown of the social networks that are most used for small business social media awareness.
LinkedIn is mostly known as a professional platform and this makes it a great networking site for raising small business social media awareness. Aside from creating a profile for yourself, you can create one for your brand and let people interact with it directly.
Main characteristics:
• LinkedIn Events can help you connect with your target group. For example, you can host an event where you display your product or a workshop where you can teach your audience how to use your product and get more familiar with your brand.
• All platforms let you post, but do they let you publish? LinkedIn has a special feature called LinkedIn Publish which allows its members to write long posts about their abilities. Users off and on LinkedIn can reach these posts.
• Another great feature about this network is that it consistently works on providing you with ways to improve yourself. LinkedIn Learning is a special feature for members that give you many courses that you can take and in the end receive a certification that would be immediately added to your profile.
This is currently the most famous social media platform where many small businesses have found their way to fame. People have managed to create a brand out of their name – also known as influencers.
Main characteristics:
• You can partner with other brands and get your posts sponsored. This will reach out to people that might not be your primary target group, however, it will boost awareness about your business.
• Instagram has been continuously upgrading its User-Generated Content (UGC). This simply means it provides a clearer path to your posts i.e. it sees that your small business targets the right audience.
• IGTV is part of Instagram’s app that lets users post videos that are up to 1 hour long – something that would look like a TV show’s episode. Almost 80% of businesses use this marketing strategy. Moreover, everyone that is subscribed to you will get a notification of your new video.
• A similar feature is Instagram’s Live Video. The only difference is that here you are interacting with your audience directly, meaning you are live presenting or discussing with them.
• You can always tease your audience with new things to come through your IG stories. You can attach a price tag, address, or a link to the official website where your products are sold.
This is probably where every small business starts first. With roughly 2.91 billion people per month as active users in just the third quarter of 2021, Facebook is the most widely used social media platform.
Letting your small business enter this giant’s world, is sure to bear fruit for you. Here are some of its small business marketing tips and tricks!
Main characteristics:
• FB was the first platform that introduced events as a way for people to easily schedule events and spread the word. You can try this feature and plan out your next dissemination event.
• The many groups that are part of the FB world give you the chance to spread the word about your small business – reaching even further from your target audience.
• Facebook Live is similar to IG’s Live and gives the same results. Moreover, FB works the same way IG does – by using UGC to bring your small business social media awareness.
• You can always post about every detail you think is relevant for the public to know. There are always options to set the post for a specific group and even schedule its publishing.
• A more recent feature on FB is the possibility to boost your posts. This means that your post would be advertised and presented to everyone scrolling through their newsfeed.
Twitter is the fastest news spreader today. A story might not have even reached the newspapers, but it is already trending on Twitter. With around 220 million users in 2021, this is the perfect place for every small business that is constantly updating and wants to share news about it.
Main features:
• Twitter is the birthplace of hashtags. This way you can aim directly at your target group of people that would be interested in that specific product or feature of it.
• If you consider some tweet to be more relevant, you can always pin it to the top of your feed, which would make it the first thing anyone that comes across your profile would see.
• Using Twitter Moments can help you show up in other people’s moments. Namely, this feature highlights the best tweets you had or where your business was mentioned.
• The feature lists can make it easy for people to keep your brand at the top of their list of people they follow.
TikTok
TikTok is the app that took the world by surprise. Overnight it became one of the most used applications around the world. Although it is deemed as just an app used by teenagers, small business owners can raise huge social media awareness with it – especially if Gen Z is their target group!
Main features:
• TikTok is a platform where you can post short videos. This means that your content should be educational and entertaining for users to keep coming back for more.
• Through hashtags, you can get more people to see your content. It works the same way as with Twitter but only in a different format.
• As a video-motivated platform, it is only logical that it would have Live Video Streaming. This feature doesn’t just make it possible for you to interact with people about your product, but it can also provide many benefits from the virtual gifts that users send.
• Of course, TikTok also uses UGC which tends to follow the lead of your hashtags and put your content on your target group’s feed.
Develop Your Small Business Brand Voice
Finding the voice for your brand is an essential element in building your online presence. This is closely related to your audience. Your brand’s voice is what would help you choose the platform where you can provide your small business with social media awareness.
Simply put, this is the tone of voice you use to appeal to your audience. Take LinkedIn for example. As a social media platform that focuses more on presenting you or your brand’s most prominent accomplishments, the tone here requires a bit of formality.
TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook are platforms where you can have as much fluff content as you want. Pizzazz and enrich your posts to the max! They can also dive into the more formal tone, but for these platforms creativity and an amicable tone go further down the path of recognition.
Managing and Creating Social Media Posts
When you’ve ticked all previous steps off your list, it’s time to start creating your online media presence. This means that you can start uploading your first posts.
Keeping in step with this part can be a bit exhausting. And, if you don’t have a good strategy, you can lose yourself in the piles of things you want to mention. That is why a good social media calendar can help you sort this out.
Prioritize what you want people to know first, schedule the time and date of the posting, and begin your journey. You get to decide how you are going to arrange this part of the strategy in a way that will be best for your small business social media awareness.
Compare and Monitor Social Media Goals
Now that you went through the whole process there is just one more thing to completion – monitoring! If you want to be sure that your small business is growing and reaching your target audience, you should always keep watch of the analytics and statistics regarding your idea’s interaction. This way you can see what’s working and where you can improve.
The Verdict
There is no person on this planet that is not present on at least one social media platform. Social media for small businesses can mean a lot and can even help a business climb to the top of the ladder.
Nowadays, as much as it is used as a means to keep in touch with friends, social media is also a key tool to raise awareness about your brand and familiarize the public with your services and offers.
Now that we covered everything you need to start on your journey of small business social media awareness, all you need to do is take the first step. Let the world see your innovativeness!
