Social Media Tips For Small Businesses

Brian King, Digital Marketing Manager, Compass Offices

Introduction

Social media – love it or loathe it, it’s everywhere and in some form or other, here to stay. With so many social networks around it can be a little tricky knowing which one’s right for your business and where to spend your time to make sure your marketing messages aren’t falling on deaf ears.

For any business just starting out or getting a foothold in a new market, social media can be a great way of finding new customers for very little money.

Here are a few tips on how to get started…

Set Goals

Setting goals and targets at the outset is vital for success on social media. It’s easy to dive straight into setting up your Facebook page, Instagram account, Reddit profile etc., etc., but you really

need to have a good idea of why you’re doing it to be successful.

TAKEAWAY - Figure out what you want to achieve with social media and let that be the guiding

principle for your efforts.

Know Your Audience

In most cases your audience will be your customers – the ones you have and the ones you want. The

types of conversations you have may vary by platform and your audience’s requirement – are

they looking for support, education, research etc. You can also use social networks to build

relationships with influencers in your industry –journalists, bloggers for example.

No matter who your audience is one thing you need to do is be ENGAGING!

Takeaway - do your homework, build your customer personas & figure out what makes them

tick so you can push the right buttons.

Choose The Right Platforms

Most likely the majority of your customers and prospects will be on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Instagram and Pinterest are also great for people who love viewing and sharing photos. Things get more diverse in Asia with the popularity of WeChat, Line and Naver. The key is to understand your audience, what they like and where they’re most likely to be highly engaged and share content that’s relevant to them.

TAKEAWAY – Know your audience. Hang out where they are and give them what they want when they

want it.

Monitor EverythingOnce you’ve got your accounts up and running and you’ve scheduled some Tweets in Buffer you can sit

back and put your feet up right? Wrong! This is where the real hard work starts. Social media

monitoring is vital to ensuring success on social. Without it you’ll miss out on conversations,

mentions of your brand or discussions about your competitors, feedback from customers and

opportunities to get involved.

TAKEAWAY - Stop. Look. Listen. You wouldn’t cross the road with your eyes shut and your fingers in

your ears, so don’t do the same with social.

Set Key Performance Indicators

To really show progress on social you need to be looking for ways to link it to company performance.

Think increase in sales leads, revenue, customer satisfaction – whichever metrics signal that you’re not just sharing cat gifs on Facebook (although if

that helps your business grow then go for it!).

Takeaway - Set KPIs that link to your company performance not just ‘soft’ improvements on your

social network reach.

Feed the Content EngineContent is the fuel that keeps your social media

engine running. Customers, it would seem, can’t get enough of all this lovely content – blogs, video, infographics, e-books, cat gifs, it’s all there in front

of us every time we log-on. This is where having your audience and their personas nailed down really helps as it should mean the content you create is aligned with what their interests are.

TAKEAWAY – Don’t let your content engine run out of fuel else you’ll be stranded in the middle of

nowhere. Use the COPE principle with your content – Create Once, Publish Everywhere.

Show Your PersonalityIf there’s one thing that social media can do more than any other marketing channel is show off your personality. If you’re going to engage with existing and potential customers showing some personality

can really help – after all you’re a human being aren’t you? There’s no place for being bland on

social media.

TAKEAWAY – Don’t be a robot, social media is about people so showoff your personality and

don’t be bland.

Build RelationshipsThe clues in the name - ‘Social” Media. When you

boil it down humans are pretty simple - we like other people. In psychology theory happiness is often defined by the quality of relationships we

have - it’s no different in business. If you can leave your customers with a nice fuzzy feeling inside

because of the amazing service you’ve provided or the great advice you’ve given then chances are

they’ll go and tell their friends about it.

TAKEAWAY – Build an army of brand advocates by building relationships first. Let your customers & prospects spread the word about how great you

are.

C o mp a s s O f f i c e s c a n h e l p , f r o m

S e r v i c e d O f f i c e s t o V i s a s . .

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