How do you use social media marketing for a small business?

If you’re looking for hacks and tips and tricks to gain followers quickly, or to go viral, you’ve come to the wrong place.

This is about using social media to affect change in your target market, so that you actually see real results in your business.

Not “get rich quick” or “get 10,000 followers today” BS.

I believe small businesses actually want the truth when it comes to marketing their small business.

You want what will have a lasting effect, and you also want to see your marketing drive business results quickly. I think that’s fair. And if you’re running a business - whether it’s just you or you have 20 employees, I think you’re probably one of the most business savvy, street smart, and logical people around when it comes to marketing.

So, here are the 4 most effective strategies to use when it comes to marketing your small business on social media.

1. It’s all about the CONTENT.

This means that when it comes to social media, you’re in the content creation game. Not the “publishing” or “staying active” game.

Content is the single most important underlying factor to any small business’s success on social.

Where most people get it wrong is that they’re creating content for themselves.

This is bad. Very bad.

Why?

Because YOU don’t want to watch videos, read posts, articles, or stories about things that have no bearing on your life, right? You swipe right past that garbage.

This is how people use social media - and this is how you use social media.

You consume the content you want to consume online, period.

Instead, small businesses too often focus on their interests, not that of their audience.

It’s the difference between saying “We’re a 5 star rated car wash company near you” versus saying “When’s the last time you washed your car? We’ll make it look like new in 15 minutes.”

See the difference?

This is important. The language, and motivation will change everything about the content you post on social media, and the way it’s perceived.

Focusing on you as a business means creating content that’s business focused, not customer focused. And unless you’re communicating to an already captive audience, the “business-focused” message and content will land flat every time.

When you identify a pain point, problem, or desire the customer actually has or is feeling, everything that comes next is automatically geared toward capturing their attention, and brining them into your radar.

So you HAVE to figure out what entertains, educates, inspires, and attracts them. Not you.

The requirement for social media marketing for small businesses is that you have to create content that your target market actually wants to watch.

2. Use the right CHANNELS

Depending on your age, the first social media channel you created for your business was probably either Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

These are 3 wildly different ways to interact with people.

The important thing is that you figure out where your target audience spends time.

Are they career men and women? In B2B industries? LinkedIn is where you should be posting content.

Are they stay at home moms, or past the age of 30? Facebook is where it’s at.

Are they young millenials? Instagram.

Are they Gen Z? TikTok and Snapchat.

Yes, these are broad generalizations, but they’re pretty accurate.

Don’t spend your time going all in on Facebook because it’s the platform you use or are most comfortable with.

The goal is to simply get in front of where your target market is already spending time.

3. Feature PEOPLE

This is a simple one, and it has an immediate impact on social media, especially if you do business locally.

People’s faces on video and pictures out-perform other content types.

Please don’t resign your content strategy to quotes on pretty backgrounds. Have a personality. Have someone’s face do the talking. If you’re a small business under 20 employees, that person is most likely the owner or #2 of the business.

It happens every single time I’ve helped a small business with their content strategy. A video of the business owner posted on the social media channel her audience uses - out performs any content that business has ever posted on social media.

The smaller you are the more this is true: People want to do business with people they know. And the more expensive your product or service, the more this is true.

4. Spend MONEY

This is the most misunderstood aspect of using social media. It feels like a trap - that you’d have to spend money on a social media channel to get your content seen.

But it’s the one strategy with the fastest and largest upside.

Before going into that - you have to know that the content you post on social media doesn’t get seen by all the people that follow your page. This is because each social media channel is trying to optimize the experience and content that’s displayed for each user.

Okay, so for the most part, social media advertising is wildly affordable. You can reach 1,000 people on Facebook or Instagram for less than $10. LinkedIn’s pricing is less favorable, but that depends on your ROI.

You can read more about How Much To Spend On Facebook Ads here.

When you put out a piece of content that gets some good attention from your audience organically (without ad spend), that’s a pretty good sign that that piece of content would perform well to a larger, but similar audience in your niche.

Let’s play the game of numbers for a second. If you have a post that has a 5% engagement rate that reaches 1,000 people organically, you have 50 people that watched your video, clicked a link, or otherwise.

Would $10 reaching 1,000 more people be worth 100 people engaging worth your content? And so on?

The power in the hands of small businesses to get in front of their target market with captivating content is unprecedented. Take advantage of it before the price goes up.

Start testing the waters and track results. Does it drive people in-store? Does it drive more website visits or purchases?

Remember that brand awareness is a measurable and worthwhile metric, with a longer-tail effect.