Social media tips for small businesses

You've set up a social media account for your business, filled out the basic information and uploaded your company's logo. So, what are the next steps?

As a business owner, it is vital to engage with social media in today's society. After all, there are over 57 million active social media users in the UK alone.

That means the days of posting a few Facebook statuses a week, inviting your friends and family to like your company page, or posting product imagery on Instagram with the sepia filter are long gone.

In the last decade, social media has fundamentally changed the way we think about business, and an active social media presence can make or break a firm.

Here are some tips for business owners on how to build a successful presence on social media.

Start with a strategy​

Although it might be tempting to dive in headfirst and start posting content on your business’s social channels, as with your business plan, having a strategy is key.

Without a social media strategy, you have no clear goal on what you are trying to achieve, no timeframe, and no way to measure your success.

This could lead your social media journey to fail before it’s even begun, and as UKBF member Shopclicks explains in this thread, “If you're not using Social Media as part of your brand building and marketing strategy, you're leaving money on the table.”

So, take time to create a plan and be sure to include the following:

Goals and objectives​

When creating your social media strategy, set goals and objectives to monitor your progress or lack of progress. When setting these objectives, adhere to the SMART goals format – make sure they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

For example, you might want to aim for 0.5% increase in engagement in the next month. To do that, rather than simply racking up likes, you might share other relevant content, reply to comments and talk to your audience via direct message.

Taking the time to respond to your followers whilst engaging with relevant content fosters a two-way conversation. It also increases the time that customers might spend on your page the more you respond to them. These steps can help to grow your community, ensure the community you’ve built feel valued – leading to more follows through recommendations – and improve your performance on the algorithm, taking increased comments and shares into consideration.

Research your competitors​

How are your competitors using their social media platforms?

Whilst you don't want to copy them, you can learn more about how they are using the platform, how many times they are posting, what content gets the most engagement and what theme they have presented.

You will be able to figure out what is working for them and what might or might not work for your business.

Create a social media calendar​

A social media calendar will help you plan what content you would like to post at a certain time, whilst also giving your audience a timeframe for when they can expect their favourite content to go live.

When you create your social media calendar, choose what days you are going to post on to promote your business, educate your audience and repost your audience's content.

If there’s more than one of you in the company, you’ll want to ensure that your team is in the loop regarding what needs to be created, for what purpose, and when. Using platforms such as monday where all team members can be added to a social media calendar, leave comments and assign tasks can help keep your social media planning as organised as possible.

Which platform is right for me?​

The platform(s) you choose depends on your audience and demographics.

Take time to research your target audience, break them down into groups, and understand which groups are using the platforms you’re interested in utilising. For example, if your audience is predominantly in the 55+ age bracket, you may want to avoid focussing your efforts on Tik Tok, who made up just 5.5 percent of users in April 2023, according to Statista.

To learn more about finding your target audience according to your goals, and how the various social media platforms may boost your brand, read our article.

Keep up with trends​

With social media still being seen as the 'new media' by many, algorithms, features and trends change constantly – so what works for you now might not work for you in a few months' time.

With that mind, ensure your plan is flexible whilst keeping an eye on what's hot and what's not.

Having a backlog of content to be scheduled is good practice. However, you should aim for a mix of evergreen content, which revolves around a topic that is always relevant to your audience, and time-sensitive content, which is only valuable for an audience for a short period of time.

Make notes of significant dates throughout the year that you can draw on, whilst researching how emerging trends could enhance your content.

For example, using ever-evolving technology such as AI to create compelling copy, images, video and designs could take your social media engagement to the next level. To learn more about how to leverage AI as a tool for social media, read our article.

Automating your posts​

You might have a million other things to juggle and posting a tweet may not be high on your list of priorities, but there are many products and services available to help manage several social media platforms at once.

Push calendar planning further by scheduling your posts. Scheduling tools such as Hootsuite or Later are fantastic planning and management tools to use when you want to schedule a batch of posts in advance.

If you’re working on a campaign, take the time to plan what posts you need, how many of them you’ll make, and how you’ll distribute them across the coming days, weeks or months.

Pick specific posting times to ensure they’re seen by your audience, and monitor your engagement, which can help you adjust your strategy as you learn more about what your audience responds to.

Monitoring the progress of your social media can help you to take further steps to boost engagement with your brand. Take note of who is viewing your posts, what their interests are and even how long they’re spending on them. This will inform tools such as ad targeting which will fit into your strategy. For more information on ad targeting or lead generation, read our comprehensive guide to paid ads.

Analysing your posts​

The success of your social media presence will largely lie in the background work you do on it. When our feeds are filled with bright, fast-paced, interesting content, many of us don’t stop to think about what’s going on behind the scenes.

This is why analytics for social media is so important. You may use tools such as Google Analytics to track progress on your website, but how are you tracking your social media performance?

Keep in mind that the aforementioned scheduling tools aren’t simply for scheduling; many have inbuilt analytics capabilities as well. Take the time to delve into your various channels. How are they performing against last week for example? Are you noticing an increase in clicks, or a decrease in engagement? Are you gaining new followers and likes on your posts?

Spending some of your week filling out a spreadsheet using the statistics from your analytics will help to guide the decision making process in your social media strategy.

Interact and engage​

Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have become the first place individuals go for quick product information, customer support, and to leave reviews.

Interaction means building a two-way communication between your brand and your audience, talking to your followers on social media to create a relationship with the consumer.

Engaging with your audience doesn't have to be a big deal. It can include liking their tweet, reposting their content on your business's social media platform or even sending them a direct message to thank them for their support.

When you repost content from your audience's social media accounts, you're doing them a big favour, potentially triggering a new wave of social shares, follows and potential backlinks.

The more of other people's content you share, the more likely it is they'll share yours, boosting your profile and potentially improving your search engine rankings.

The use of shared hashtags such as #tbt (throwback Thursday) and adding locations to your posts will also help your content to reach a wider audience. Social media enables users to use hashtags to search for content they find interesting.

By researching trending topics and hashtags whilst creating posts that relate to these hashtags, you’re increasing your chances of being discovered when someone uses the search term.

Using hashtags is also a great way to break your audience into segments. If you’re looking to appeal to multiple demographics, you might make your posts demographic-specific by using a hashtag that only a certain group would search for.

For example, if you own a skincare and beauty brand, you might use #skincare in one post showcasing your skincare products, and #makeup for another post targeting those you want to draw to your beauty products.

Invest your time​

As the saying goes, ‘it's a marathon, not a sprint’ – the same applies to social media.

Gaining attraction will take time for an SME compared to a multinational, multi-million-pound company which already has great brand awareness and a following offline.

Be patient, stick at it, and keep an eye on those engagement statistics. It might not feel like much in the moment but after a year, if you keep posting, you can expect to see more likes, more shares and more followers.

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