Master Small Business Social Media Marketing and Succeed in 2022
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What does small business social media marketing entail? And how can you utilize social media marketing for small businesses?
For a small business social media marketing is one of the best marketing tools available. Social media marketing done right will grow your small business.
You recently started your business and want to establish your customer base. Or you have an existing business and want to reach out to new customers and increase sales. What your business does and where it is in its growth process does not matter. Social media marketing is a necessity.
So where do you start?
In this article you will find everything you need to get started with your social media marketing. Bullet list of content
- What is Small Business Social Media Marketing and why do you need it?
- You have to start with the basics
- Choose the right platform for your small business’ social media marketing
- Research other small business’ social media marketing
- Creating your social media marketing content
- Growing your audience on social media
Small Business Social Media Marketing: What is it and why do you need it?
How can you as a small business leverage social media marketing? Before we get into this, it is important to know what social media marketing is. And why you need it.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing means to use social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook or TikTok in your marketing. There is an important distinction between social media marketing and traditional marketing. In social media marketing the communication is two-way. Whereas in traditional marketing communication is one way.
So what does that mean?
It means that marketing becomes more personal and you can connect with your customers better. The customer does not only receive a message. They can now respond and express their opinions in the form of likes, comments and shares. It also means that what you communicate needs to be relevant and engage the customer. The great thing about social media marketing is that you get feedback on your content and can track exactly how well it is doing.
Why does a small business need social media marketing?
Small businesses do not have the same resources as more established firms. And standing out in the marketing jungle may seem impossible. But social media marketing for small businesses is not that different than for large businesses. Whether it is a personal brand or a large corporation, the fundamentals of social media marketing remains the same. Create meaningful content that connects with your audience.
Large corporations with infinite resources do have an advantage. But social media has made it easy for small businesses to make their voices heard. Social media platforms are easy to use and do not require advanced design or marketing skills. Plus there are plenty of tools out there to help you. Most importantly social media marketing is free or can cost very little if you do want to use paid ads.
Small businesses also have an advantage over large corporations. They are run by one person or a few number of people. That means it is much easier to connect with your audience. It is not some customer service agent answering comments and messages. The messages actually come from the person who created the business – and has a passion for it.
You have to start with the basics
Now that you know what makes social media marketing so useful how do you apply that to your small business?
To start your social media marketing you have to start like any other marketing – with the basics. You can’t just post random things on social media expecting big results.
If you are not too familiar with the marketing basics I will give you some quick tips to get started. But I do recommend that you read up on 5 Small Business Marketing Tips.
Marketing is about achieving the business’s goals by meeting and exceeding customer needs, better than the competition.
Let’s break this down to what that means for you as a small business:
- First of all to be able to meet your customers’ needs you have to know your customer – and understand what they need. That means defining your target audience and getting to know them. To learn more about how to target the right audience check out my Target Market Analysis article.
- Once you know who you are targeting you have to set up clear business goals to achieve them. This does not only involve your marketing goals but your overall business goals. Is your goal to grow your business by getting more customers? Or is it to achieve higher profit margins from your already loyal customer base? Depending on what your business goals are, your marketing goals will vary. And thus, your marketing strategy.
- You also have to figure out how you are going to satisfy your audience better than the competition. When there is a whole world out there of products and services, how do you stand out in the crowd? That’s when branding comes in. Branding is what makes your business unique and how you communicate that. That means figuring out what your unique selling point is and building a brand around that. If you have not created your brand already and you’re not sure how to proceed, make sure to read my article on How to Build a Brand as a Small Business.
Once you have established what your brand is it is time to communicate it. And that is where you will use social media as your marketing tool.
Choosing the right platform for your small business social media marketing
Knowing your audience is important to ensure your products are satisfying their needs. But you also need to communicate with them on the right social media platform. There is no point of doing the hard work of creating marketing content if you are communicating it on a platform that your customers do not use.
In the following section I will outline the largest social media platforms. And make you understand what makes each social media platform unique. That way you can decide which one is right for your business.
If your business is selling consumer products or services Instagram is a great platform to market your business. Most Instagram users follow a brand, which is a great opportunity for you as a small business. If you create content that your customers can relate to and engage with it means you can do your marketing for free. At the same time you will gain new customers and create more loyal customers.
Like with most social media platforms Instagram tailors to a younger audience. The majority of Instagram users are between 18 to 34 years old and 3 out of 4 teenagers use the platform. But Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide. This means there are plenty of other age groups to target as well. But if your audience mostly consists of seniors, Instagram, or any social media, is probably not the best medium for you.
Facebook is the largest social media platform with more than 2.85 billion users. Almost 7 out of 10 American adults use Facebook. While the largest age group is between 25 and 35, they only make up 24 percent of all users. This makes Facebook one of the most age diverse social media platforms. The younger users do not engage as much with brands on Facebook anymore and find their inspiration on other social media platforms. But users over 35 are gaining traction on Facebook and it is their most used platform. In contrast to many other social media platforms, Facebook actually has more male than female users.
Like with Instagram, Facebook is best if you are selling consumer goods or services. And these two platforms are usually a good combination to use together since they are integrated and both owned by Meta.
As a small business owner, Facebook groups are also a great tool to utilize. You can market your own products and engage with other business owners in the same position as you. Facebook groups is, therefore, a useful marketing platform if you are selling B2B products or services.
Pinterest is not a social media platform in the true sense, it is actually a visual search engine. That means it works more like Google in the way that customers search for products, services or inspiration. The difference being the search is visual, with images. Many Pinterest users comes to the platform to search for purchase inspiration. This means that Pinterest is a great tool to utilize in social media marketing for small businesses.
In contrast to other social media platforms, Pinterest requires some design skills. Since it is a visual search engine you want to have inspiring images along with educational content in your pins. Luckily, there are some great, easy-to-use design tools out there that are provided at no or little cost. Canva is one of those and it is very intuitive and has many great templates. I definitely recommend you to upgrade to the Pro version, since it does come with many more useful tools.
The demographics of Pinterest users are also different from other social media platforms. A vast majority is female, even though the male user amount is fast-growing. The users are also older with the largest age group being 50-64 year olds, followed by 30-49 year olds and then 18-29 year olds. An interesting fact is also that 80 percent of internet using mothers in the US, uses Pinterest. With these specific demographics, it is important to make sure that your target audience use Pinterest.
LinkedIn is a social media platform for business professionals. That makes it the best channel for small businesses that sells B2B products or services. If you sell B2B, LinkedIn should be your number one social media platform. LinkedIn has almost 800 million users with 1 out of 3 users in the US. It is a great platform to network with other business professionals and potential clients. You can have a personal profile where you network and a business page to get more exposure of your business.
YouTube
YouTube is the second most popular social media platform with 2 billion users. The largest age group is 18-25 year old’s, where more than 8 of 10 use YouTube. But it is still used in the older age groups as well, with almost 6 of 10 people over 56 years old using the platform. That means YouTube has a wide reach.
Since the platform only has video content, most brands do not have their own YouTube channel but rather pays for ads. For you as a small business, especially if you recently got started it might not be the right platform for you. But, if you have great video content or sell complicated products that needs how-to-videos, YouTube is a great tool to show what your business does.
Tiktok
The new up and coming platform in the social media realm – being the most downloaded app last year– is TikTok. The platform has the youngest audience with a third of the users being between 10-19 years old. And 50 percent of the 689 million users are under the age of 30. It is a golden opportunity if your target audience is Gen Z’s.
With fun, engaging video content you can connect with the audience by giving interesting or inspirational advice. The best thing about Tiktok is that if your content hits the mark it can go viral. Then you can reach out to an immense amount of new potential customers. For a small business, this can give you a sudden growth burst, spiking your sales!
The last social media platform you should consider for your social media marketing as a small business is Twitter. The platform has over 300 billion users, whereof 70 percent are male. In the US the user base is more equal with a little more than half of the users being male. A vast majority of the users get their news from Twitter and it is also a used for sharing opinions. So if you are a news outlet or your business shares values or politics, Twitter is definitely the platform for you.
Research other small business social media marketing
Before you start creating your content, you need to do your due diligence. That means researching what type of content to create and how to communicate it.
Research doesn’t have to be boring
If you are one of the people that stops listening as soon as someone mentions research, you should know that research does not have to be boring. Research does not mean science. You don’t have to perform any advanced research methods to start your social media marketing. Research means to look into what other similar businesses are doing and taking note of what’s working and what’s not. H3: Look at your competitors
Here are some great questions you can ask when doing research for your own social media marketing:
- What are similar businesses doing?
- What is working for them?
- What type of content is getting engagement (i.e. likes, comments, shares)?
- What does not seem to be working?
- What captions, descriptions and hashtags are they using?
- What Call-to-Actions (CTAs) are they using?
Get organized
Make sure to take notes in a structured way when researching other small businesses’ social media marketing. A good way is to create an excel sheet with headlines to make sure your notes are readable and to get an easy overview. That way it is easy to summarize the key take a-ways from each competitor and each question.
Get inspired, don’t copy
Looking at competitors or other small businesses’ social media marketing is a great way to get inspired for your own work. Taking note of best practices is the best way to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes others have done. It makes your future work of creating content much easier and more effective.
But it is important to remember that you should not copy other people’s work. If you see a tool or technique that you like and think your business could use, make sure to adapt it to your brand. Remember that you want to do it better than the competition and you do that by being unique. And not to mention it is very unethical and sometimes illegal to copy other people’s work.
Creating your content
After you have chosen the social media platforms and done your research you should have a clear idea of what type of content works for your target audience. That is when it is time to start actually creating the content. Below are some tips on how to think when creating the content for your social media.
Leverage your small business for social media marketing
If you already have a business that is up and running, you have a good base to start creating social media marketing content. Whether you sell products or services you have material to use for photoshoots, infographics or videos. You don’t have to buy any new products or tools to create your content, when you are getting started. Make sure to think about what your small business already has that you can utilize in your content creation.
Create inspiring content – not promotional
While there are some exceptions, most people are not on social media with the intent to buy a product or service. They go on social media to look for inspiration, entertainment and to be part of a community. That is why it is vital that you do not have purely promotional content on your social media. Having inspiring content does not mean it won’t generate sales – rather the opposite. It just means that you have to be very careful with the way you sell your products. Display your products in a context that is inspirational.
Let’s give a quick example. If you sell homemade ceramic vases don’t use plain product images from your website with the caption ‘Beautiful vases, get yours today!’. Instead, set up a scene where the vase is being used in a home. Make it look inviting and homey and write a caption such as ‘Who else loves coming home to the smell of fresh flowers after a rough day at work?’.
Always make sure to engage with your target audience’s emotions. What problems do they have, that your product solves?
Quality is king
You don’t have to be a professional photographer or video editor to create good content that resonates with your target audience. But it is important to ensure that the quality of your content is high. That means high resolution photos and videos with professional looking graphics. It does not have to be difficult, but if you don’t have much photo experience – do some research before you start. Go on YouTube and learn some techniques that are useful for your specific content creation.
When you are first starting out, there are not that many products you need to buy to create high quality content. Most of the time, using your smartphone is enough to take high quality photos or videos for social media. But if you want to level up your content there are some useful tools you can get.
Below I have put together a short list of useful items that boost the quality of your content for a low cost.
- A ring light is a great tool to get better lighting if you are shooting videos of yourself at home. It is also useful for all your zoom meetings or for creating webinars.
- If you want to shoot professional looking videos while moving around – a gimbal is a useful tool to make stabilize your video.
- If you are shooting video with you talking – or doing voice over videos, a good mike is essential to get good sound quality.
Stay true to your brand
When creating your content it is important to be purposeful. Don’t post nice looking photos for the sake of posting. Make sure to think about how every piece of content resonates with your brand. How can you express your brand through the content you are creating? Stay true to your brand in all the content you create. If you are using multiple social media platforms make sure to stay consistent across all of them. This also connects to having inspirational and not promotional content. Remember that you need to be authentic.
Use your customers
One of the great advantages of social media is that your customers can communicate back to you. That means if they like your product they may post it on their own social media and tag you. You can then use that content to ease your content creation and to create more engagement and trust.
If you want to learn more about strategies to better engage your audience on social media, you should read this article on Social Media Engagement Posts. You will understand what drives engagement amongst your audience. And get helpful tips on how to create engaging social media posts.
Plan it out
The single most important thing in social media marketing for small businesses is to make a plan. I do not only mean a general marketing plan – but to plan out your content creation. Reserve a few hours every week, and plan out the content in detail for the week ahead.
One of the most common mistakes when starting out with social media marketing is making up content right before posting it. And if you have come this far in this article you should know why that is a bad idea. If you make up content right before posting, it is the most likely reason you will fail.
Make sure to plan out each month, week and day in advance. That way your content is strategic and hits the spot with your target audience.
This is a common problem for many small businesses when starting their social media marketing. That is why I have created a Social Media Planner to eliminate the stress of content creating and posting consistently.
Set up goals for every post, and every week and month, so that you are strategic with your posts. Create a clear Call to Action (CTA) by asking what you want your audience to do when they see your post. Your CTA can be engagement by asking your audience a question. Or to reach a wider audience by encouraging them to tag a friend. You need to have a clear objective with your posts that drives your marketing and business goals.
After planning out the week ahead – create your content in batches. Set aside time to create all the content for the upcoming week at once. That way, you manage your time better and then have the content ready to go, when you need it!
Growing your audience
Now you should have all the basics down of how to do social media marketing for your small business. It is time to start posting it and growing your audience. In this section you will find some useful advice to have in mind when growing your audience. Keep in mind that growing your audience takes a long time and effort. Results differs significantly between different platforms too. The tips below are some great pointers but you have to try out what works for you and your business.
Hashtags and geolocation
The easiest way to reach out to new potential customers or new followers is to use relevant hashtags and locations. People follow topics they are interested in. When using relevant hashtags more people will come across your content.
Ads can make sense
Your purpose of social media marketing might not be to create a huge following and generate organic traffic. If you have a small marketing budget ads can be a good complement to posting organic content. Ads make sense when your goal is to generate more traffic and sales to a website. It is important to know the specifics of who you want to target when setting up ad campaigns so that you get the most return on investment.
Ads doesn’t have to be expensive. With Facebook and Instagram ads you can set up ad campaigns with a very limited budget. You can choose exactly how much you want to spend every day and it does not have to be more than a few dollars.
Engage with your audience
If you think you are done when you posted your content – you are not doing it right. To keep your audience engaged it is important that you engage back. Answer comments and DMs after every time you post to keep your audience interested. Social media marketing is about creating social interactions. Make sure to keep up conversations with your followers.
Analyze what social media marketing is working for your small business
All social media platforms have their own analytics tools so make sure to utilize them. Analyze what content is doing well; reach, impressions, likes, comments, shares etc. and what content is not working. Try to see if you can find a pattern and create more content that are performing well. When you are first getting started don’t worry about getting high engagement – it takes time. But try to see if there are some content that are doing better.
Consistency is key
Small business social media marketing takes time. You need to be consistent with posting your content. If you are doing all of the above and you feel like it is not paying off, remember that you are not alone. There are thousands of people out there, trying to make it, just like you. For some it is a steeper learning curve, while it comes more natural for others. Don’t worry as long as you keep going and are consistent, it will pay off.
It is also important to know that you don’t have to be great at all of the above tasks to make it. If you are not a good photographer or if you are bad at graphic design or video editing – you don’t need to do it yourself. If you already have a team, delegate tasks to play on every team members strengths. If you are a solo entrepreneur, hire an expert. The great thing about the internet is that it is very easy to find someone else to do work for you. Fiverr is one of those services where it is very easy to find gig workers that can help you with any sort of task. And it does not have to cost much.
Now that you know all about what social media marketing is and how to use it for your small business, it is time to start planning and get creating!
Remember to always start your creation process with your customer in mind. Choose the social media platforms that your target audience uses the most. Look at what other businesses in your industry are doing to get inspiration. Make sure to always plan out your content in advance and set clear goals. After creating and posting your content engage with your audience. Set off time to analyze what is working well before you start your next content creation process.
Thank you for reading this article and I hope you now have all the tools to get started on your social media marketing journey. If you liked this article, please share it with a friend!
I'm Emma Ellinor
I’m a digital marketer, project manager and retail analyst.
For the past 7 years I have immersed myself into the field of marketing and management. I am on a mission to inspire more women to take their business to the next level. By sharing my journey to escape the 9-5 trap along with useful marketing, time management and small business tips.
