5 Tips for Every Business on Social Media

Every smart business owner knows that Social Media has become a major player in the marketing world. With the boom of different options available to reach out to potential customers, it can be confusing for the average business owner to know where to start or even what platform to use.

Each platform, (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), offers an array of options for business owners. Some of these options may work for your business and some won’t. You usually have the option to do paid advertising or pay to promote your business in some way shape or form. Paid advertising on Social Media can be very lucrative if done correctly. If you do it incorrectly, you will spend a lot of money with no return. The best Social Media Marketers spend hours every week researching industry specific trends, adjusting ad campaigns, creating fresh content, and posting.

It is not impossible to do your own Social Media Marketing and be successful. It simply depends on your industry, budget, knowledge, skill, and time available. To start, we always recommend your business at least have an Instagram and Facebook business page. These are the most popular Social Media sites. The tips in this article are going to focus on unpaid marketing on these two platforms. These are things every business can and should be doing to get the most out of Social Media for zero dollars.

1. Engagement is everything: Engagement should be your main goal for any non-paid marketing you do on Social Media. Engagement measures the shares, likes and comments for an online business’ social media posts and/or page. The more engagement you get, the more likely you are to gain followers, have your posts shown, and page suggested. In short, more people find out about your business. This is called Brand Awareness. The more followers the better, but never pay for followers. Many companies will promise you hundreds of followers for a few dollars, but these “followers” are usually not active accounts, are not US profiles, and don’t ever engage with your posts. So, paid “followers” don’t benefit your business. Also, data from your Social Media pages can be used for marketing, but if you purchase fake followers that data basically becomes useless.
2. Content: Content is what users engage with, so it is really important to make sure it grabs attention and keeps it. All your posts are considered content. This includes text, images, and videos. In order to make sure your content is engaging, you need to use mostly fresh content instead of re-posts or borrowed content. Users are more likely to engage with a post if it is something they have not seen already.
3. Posting: One of the biggest mistakes made by business owners on Social Media is over-posting. When you make a post your followers see the post in their newsfeed. If you make post after post, users tend to get annoyed, and may unfollow you. Followers are your main source of engagement, so you want to have as many as possible. Another common mistake is posting sales-driven posts. Users already see a plethora of paid ads in their newsfeed, so they can easily be turned off if your posts appear salesy. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever post a sales based post, but limit it. A good guideline is to post no more than 2 times a day, and keep a ratio of 3 non-sales posts to 1sales driven post.
4. Personal vs. Business: Keep your business image and personal image separate on Social Media. This is true for almost every business. You should not make posts on your business page about politics, religion, or controversial topics. It is also recommended that you don’t post selfies, or other personal images. It is totally acceptable to make posts such as “Meet our owner and founder” with a professional looking picture, or pictures from a team building event. Keeping your business image professional helps create trust with users, and users include potential customers. Some exceptions are realtors, stylists, artists, models, and influencers.
5. Keep your expectations reasonable: There is paid advertising on Social Media (sponsored ads, paid promotions), and then there is free marketing (business pages, posts). It is unlikely you will get paid marketing results for unpaid marketing. You should have clear and reasonable expectations when using free advertising of any kind. Social Media is a great place to spread awareness of your business, for free. But, if you expect a sales boom just from posting you are going to be disappointed. This does not mean that Social Media isn’t worth it unless you pay for marketing. Having a Social Media presence has been shown to help create a relationship between consumer and business that is beneficial for both. Many people use Social Media to search for services or products instead of Google. If your business isn’t there, someone else’s business will be.

With all of the options Social Media offers, it is easy to get lost and confused about what will work for you and your business. With these tips, and a little time, you can have your business of to a great start.

If you want more out of Social Media, and are interested in paid Social Media Marketing, we can provide you a free no-obligation consultation and go over industry specific strategies based on your budget. Our team specializes in an array of industries, spanning from Fashion to Medical. Each member is skilled in content creation and topic research, so we can get you the most out of your marketing.