Social Media Tips For Local Businesses
Social media plays a huge part in the success of a business, but did you know that smaller, local businesses actually have an advantage when it comes to social media. Today, we’re going to go over some of the ways that you can utilise different social media strategies to promote your business online and gain new customers.
Starting A New Business? Use Social Media Ahead Of Time!
The most successful entrepreneurs will begin developing their social media strategy before their new business is even trading. Using various social media channels to generate hype around a business or product before its official launch is a great way to gauge potential interest and build your brand’s recognition among your target customer base.
Choose The Social Channels Best Suited To Your Brand
These days there are multiple social media channels available to businesses. Each social media platform has its own advantages and disadvantages, and content that works well on LinkedIn probably isn’t well-suited to TikTok. It quickly becomes overwhelming to try and create different content for all of them.
At Carden Digital, when we create social media campaigns for our clients, we focus on the social channels where their ideal customers are most likely to be found. If you are planning your own social media strategy, you should start by focusing on one or two platforms first before you think about expanding.
Consider the type of content you will be sharing on social media and who you are trying to reach. For example, B2B (business to business) service providers are best suited to LinkedIn and Facebook for their content as it tends to be more long form and focused on an older, more professional audience. A business targeting potential customers under 30 would be better off creating shorter, more shareable content for Instagram and TikTok.
Use Social Media To Humanise Your Business
“Business” can feel like a dirty word to some people. To many it conjures images of a boardroom of faceless executives. This is why social media is a great way to get your customers to relate to the real people behind your brand.
Authenticity builds trust. If your team feel comfortable with it, consider creating a social media post each week about a different team member. Don’t just focus on their role within the company, but also include some fun facts about their interests and their life outside of work. Customers feel more engaged with brands when they can see they are run by real people they can relate to.
Share Your Expertise
If your business specialises in something, share some of that knowledge to build engagement and demonstrate your expertise. By creating social posts which are easily shareable and full of tips related to your business’s niche, you can engage users who are curious about that.
For example, if you run a local florist, you could create a social post about how to keep fresh flowers alive for longer, with accompanying pictures detailing the different steps. This provides valuable information for potential customers, is more likely to be shared by people, and works as a great way of showing off your beautiful flower arrangements without feeling too “salesy”.
Schedule Your Social Content Ahead Of Time
Just because you’re making social media content, doesn’t mean you have to be glued to your social media accounts all day. You can set aside time weekly or monthly to create a series of social posts ahead of time and then use a social media scheduling tool to post them at regular intervals.
Be Proactive With Your Community
Social media isn’t just for updating your followers, you should also be regularly interacting with key figures in your industry and social community. A quick like, share or comment on another user’s post can go a long way in building your standing on social platforms. These small acts not only put your business name in front of your ideal customers, they also encourage other pages to reciprocate by interacting with your content. Additionally, posting in relevant groups or with the right hashtags can help expose your brand to your ideal customers. Facebook groups, for example, are microcosms of potential customers concentrated into a single space. Regular, genuine interactions with these communities can provide a myriad of previously untapped opportunities for your business.
Collaborate With Other Local Businesses
If you’re starting a new business, it’s worth looking at other local businesses who are using social media effectively. You could collaborate with them, cross-posting social content between your channels to engage with each other’s audiences or offering promotions to each other’s existing customers. For example, a local florist and a local chocolate shop both promoting each other around Valentine’s Day.
Collaborate With Local Influencers
Local influencers are always looking for new ways to make content. Try making a list of the 10 most popular influencers in your local area and contacting each one about a potential collaboration. For example, if you run a local coffee shop, a popular local youtuber might be interested in doing an “I spent the day working as a barista” video.
Keep Track Of What Works And What Doesn’t
Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing is extremely trackable. All social platforms give you data on how your posts have performed. This can be as simple as how many likes a post has received, or it can be more in-depth, giving you data on impressions, shares, average view time and so forth.
At Carden Digital, we provide our customers with detailed monthly reports on how the social campaigns we have created are performing and we factor this data in to how we create future content. Keeping what’s worked and replacing underperforming posts with new ideas, to constantly refine our social strategy for each client. Even if you are running your own campaigns, you can still keep track of how your social posts are performing, even if it is just on a spreadsheet. Once you know what is working and what is not, you can start to make improvements.
Too Busy For Social Media? Use A Digital Marketing Agency!
Running a business can take up a huge amount of time, and not everyone has the energy to also run a social media campaign as well. But if your competitors are already doing it, not using social media leaves you at a disadvantage.
If you’re struggling to find the time to manage your own social media, consider partnering with a digital marketing agency like Carden Digital who specialise in running successful social media campaigns for businesses of all sizes on a variety of social platforms. You can learn more about our social media marketing services here or speak to our social media team directly.
