Kim’s Website Design & Marketing
6 Powerful Social Media Practices That Every Small Business Needs To Adopt
One of the most powerful, yet, easiest means small businesses communicate with their customers today is through social media. Small businesses can also use social media for marketing for their products and services to attract potential customers through direct ads. However, the results you get from your social media efforts often depend on how you manage your various social accounts.
In this article, I will discuss the best social media marketing practice that you can use to get the best results both in the short and long term. Let’s dive in!
Focus more on giving value and not selling
People log into their social media accounts to check out the latest news or know what their friends, family, and favourite celebrities are up to. If you want to get engagement and valuable followers, you need to create value through the content you publish. Don’t only publish direct-sale posts. Most digital marketing experts recommend publishing only up to 20% of direct-sale related posts. The rest of the posts should focus on giving value to your customers whether that be through educating them on interesting facts (make sure they are facts – not just recycled unknowns), entertainment, and general social and sharable items.
Content should be tailored to the platform
One of the common mistakes people make is posting the same type of content on all their social platforms. What they forget is that people using these platforms expect to see different types of content. For instance, Twitter is more of a “what’s happening” platform. Whereas platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are for sharing memorable photos and videos from different events. As a brand, you need to have a unique marketing strategy for each of these social platforms. But above that, just get active! Being on there and even just posting, no matter how irregular you are. It’s better to be on the appropriate platforms that your possible customers are on, but rarely, than not on it at all.
Know how frequent to post
Each social media platform has a different way of handling posting frequency. Experts recommend sharing up to 15 tweets per day because Twitter’s algorithm is not very aggressive in limiting reach like Facebook or Instagram. For LinkedIn and Facebook, the recommended number of posts per day is 1. The recommended posting frequency for Instagram is two posts per day, and that for Pinterest is up to 11 pins per day. So once you know where your audience hangs out virtually on social media platforms, you then know what platforms you could engage on, and now you know the acceptable posting frequencies, you can plan accordingly.
Engage with your audience
You shouldn’t stop at publishing content; responding to comments is also crucial. Always aim at responding to all the comments that your audience shares regarding the posts you publish. Social media is about interaction, so brands that interact with their followers more will often get better results than those who ignore their followers’ comments.
Avoid spamming your prospects
Yes, you may once in a while send DMs to your followers about your products or maybe a link to your monthly webinar. However, this should be done in a regulated manner. Sending multiple messages to your prospects within a few days is a turn-off for most people. In the worst-case scenario, you could even be penalized if some of the people you sent these DMs report your account for spamming.
Above all, respect your audience and your potential customers. No one wants to be bombarded with anything!! Especially in their social and or leisure time. We would all hate that too so just put yourself in their shoes and deliver interesting unique content.
PS. **Bonus** The #1 Social Media Management Tip
ENJOY the process. Enjoy posting. Enjoy sharing the latest happenings, fun facts, interesting product uses, service benefits and other info.
If you don’t love doing it, or it stresses you out, get someone else to do it. It is now an important part of a business so do try to place some importance on it and either take care of that process, or hire someone (like us, (but it doesn’t have to be us)), to handle it all for you.
Want to chat about your scenario? Call me (Kim) today and we can figure out a plan for you. The right balance for your business.
You don’t have to be everywhere. Choose one thing first, then act.
Have fun and talk to you soon.
Kindest Regards,
Kim