Top 5 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

Are you a small business looking to get the best out of social media, but not sure how to get going? Well, look no further. Here are the FreshOnline Top 5 Tips to get started and it really isn’t as hard as you think.

Sometimes it can feel like a jungle out there for small business owners, when on top of the day-to-day running of their company, they are trying to figure out the best way to promote themselves online. But one thing is for certain, with over 4 billion social media users out there globally, twice as many as just five years ago and the numbers still soaring, social media in 2022 is impossible to ignore.

Statistics show that on average people spend 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media every day – so let’s figure out how small businesses like yours, can get a look in on their customers’ browsing time and get noticed. We will be focussing on:

· Brand awareness – getting you noticed.

· Building relationships online – making your customers feel noticed.

· Converting your online activities into sales – getting your products and services SOLD.

Before we launch into our top tips on how to get noticed on social media, let’s first put to bed a few rookie mistakes and misconceptions about these platforms.

– One of the biggest allures of using social media to promote your products and services is that it’s FREE sales & marketing.

This is of course true, but remember, the time you devote to maintaining your social media presence is not free – and your time is precious, it has value. So, the aim is always to work smart, to devise an achievable plan to get the online rewards you are seeking in a way that is most considerate of your time.

– The measure of success on social media is the number of ‘likes’ you rack up.

Whilst ‘likes’ are very flattering, don’t let them distract you from what you are really trying to achieve online. Instead, evaluate your success on the business goals you’ve set for your social media, which may be: Are you engaging with the customers you want? Are your follower numbers going up? Are your sales increasing?

– Putting something up on social media is better than not putting anything up at all.

This rabbit hole is definitely one to avoid. Think of your social media platforms as your shopfront, keep them stocked with quality things that people want and value. FreshOnline always advises quality over quantity.

FreshOnline’s Top 5 social media Tips for small businesses

Top Tip 1: Research your competition

To get started, this is probably the easiest and most effective step any small business can take. Whilst you don’t want to copy your competitors, seeing what they are up to is a great way to shape how you might want to improve and promote your own online profile. You can identify what’s working for them, and what’s not – and most importantly, how you could improve on it and stay ahead!

This research could save you time and help get you inspired. Oh, and following their followers wouldn’t do you any harm either!

Try to put time aside monthly to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

Top Tip 2: Schedule your social media posts

Scheduling your social media posts ensures you get the right content to the right platforms at the right time. A good social media plan will also include a mix of content. This is the easiest and most time effective way to manage your social media platforms.

Put an hour aside each week to schedule your posts and use one of the many online platforms to schedule them, such as Canva.

Top Tip 3: Quality content

Pumping out generic sales content repeatedly is not going to do you any favours in the 2022 social media marketplace, in fact, it’s the quickest way to disengage browsers. The general rule for content nowadays is 80-20, so let’s start with that.

· Use 80% of your content to inform and educate, telling browsers interesting facts and providing content designed to help them to solve problems and get them to engage.

· By doing this you are adding value and demonstrating yourself as a reliable and knowledgeable specialist in your business field and you are creating trust – which is the online ‘Holy Grail’ – as trust leads to sales.

· Use only 20% of your content to promote your brand and sell your products and services.

Top Tip 4: Build relationships

As a small business, having the ability to talk directly to your customers and followers is crucial to growing your brand, trust and visibility, especially as the big guys can’t do this. This is where social media platforms really come into their own for you.

Remember, social media is a two-way thing! Interact with your followers’ posts and comments, respond with genuine interest, like and share their content too. Tag them in your stories to make them feel a valued part of your brand.

Getting new customers is always great, but let’s not forget to value those existing customers too. Make sure they feel seen and valued as well.

Top Tip 5: Get creative with your sales promotions

By now you have probably got the message that social media is not really the place for aggressive sales campaigns – but that is not to say it isn’t an excellent place to grow your customer base and promote your brand, which should lead to sales.

Approach your sales and promotions more creatively online with giveaways, competitions, or perhaps set sales campaigns around special days of the year.

Whatever you choose, in exchange for a chance to win a reward, such as a discount or a freebie, you could ask them to carry out a few simple online tasks:

– ‘Like’ the promotion.
– ‘Share’ the offer.
– ‘Comment.’
– ‘Tag’ others in the comments.
– ‘Follow’ you.

To generate relationships with your followers you could try using humour or create interactive stories and ask questions to promote feedback and engagement. Get this right and the sales will follow.

More social media advice for small businesses?

These tips are just the starting point when it comes to achieving success with your social media platforms.

FreshOnline has many tools designed to get the most out of your social media. From training courses, to scheduling and managing your posts, to running targeted social media campaigns and much more. Get in touch to find out more.