11 Easy Ways for Small Businesses to promote their Business on Social Media

Promoting A Small Business on Social Media

Hello new entrepreneur! First of all, congrats for starting your business. Not all people have the determination to give life to the idea of starting their own venture.

Be it a small business or a big conglomerate, the ultimate aim of any company is to maximise the profits. How do we do that? What is the most basic step to make a business successful  regardless of its size?

Increasing the customer base and selling products to customers based on their needs.

Having said that, How are we going to attract customers? Of course, through advertisement and sales promotion techniques. But, the traditional means of advertising and sales promotion can be out of your budget, especially for small businesses with tight budgets.

So, which mode of promotion is less costly, but at the same has the potential to drive maximum customers? Undoubtedly, Social Media.

Why Social Media?📲

Gone are the days when people used social media to reconnect with their old buddies and make memories. Today the footprint of social media has grown to an extent where people  spend a significant amount of time on social media, glued to their screens, scrolling endlessly even for hours.

So, social media has people, it grasps their attention, and it keeps them glued, which is more than enough to promote your business among a wide base of audience.

But, how are you going to penetrate their social media feeds, engage them and make them your customers?

Here is a step by step guide for small businesses to make the best use of social media to promote business:

1. Determine your goal🎯

The first and foremost step is to determine your goal before  creating a social media strategy. This helps in identifying the target audience, the channels they use and their preferences. Proper identification of goals makes it easier to develop an effective social media strategy.

2. Developing Social Media Strategy🧩

Promoting your business is not a one-time activity, but a continuous and calculative process to increase the customer base, Hence a robust plan is required to decide how to promote the business. Starting from the selection of channels to analysing the metrics, every single activity forms the part of a successful social media strategy.

3. Select the right platform✅

Selecting the right platform to promote your business is a crucial step. It depends on the nature of business you indulge in and the demographic profile of the customer. Below are some of the sought after social media channels:

• Facebook: It is the largest and most active social media platform, perfect for the businesses that aim to generate leads and build relationships with customers.
• Instagram: When it comes to Instagram, appearances definitely are not deceptive. Posting some eye-appealing images can do wonder for your sales.
• LinkedIn: This is ideal for B2B business, helping in creating proper networks and making new business deals.
• Twitter: Posting relevant promotional content with trending issues can skyrocket your user engagement.
• WhatsApp: It is the word of mouth promotion gone digital. Other platforms sometimes require expert guidance, but in WhatsApp, creating a broadcast group of your customers and posting engaging content to the customers itself will do the magic.

4. Create profiles on multiple platforms✔️

This might contradict the previous step. If your product is universal to all kinds of customers or if you wish to target even a minimal amount of customer base across channels, it is always good to create accounts on multiple platforms. Say, for example, though the majority of the youngsters have started using Instagram and Snapchat, some still are very much active on Facebook. So it is always beneficial to show your presence in multiple platforms. Make sure the profile is simple, attractive and subscribe-friendly.

5. Be active and post content regularly👍🏻

Now that you have created accounts in multiple platforms, it is important to post content frequently all day, every day. Social Media works on the classic business principle of survival of the fittest. Your posts should flood in the feeds of the users regularly so that you create a strong brand presence and recognition among the users. Make use of a content calendar to plan your social media campaign. Consider social media as a Warfield, and your content as the weapon that fights for your existence. You are going to lose the battle, the moment the weapon is dropped.

6. What to post and when to post?🤔

There is no doubt that you have to post content regularly, to stay in the race. But the quality of the content and the appropriate timing of posting the content decides whether you won the race or not. The content you post should be:

• Simple
• Crisp
• Concise
• Visually Appealing.

Best Time to promote content on Social Media⏰

When should you post the content to get maximum attention from the users?

• Facebook: Login to your Facebook and select Facebook insights, which provides data about the best time to post based on time zone and demographic data of the users in your page.
• Twitter: The ideal time to post on Twitter is between Mondays to Thursday from 1 pm to 4 pm. During this time, user engagement is very high.
• Instagram: People wake up these days, scrolling Instagram. So the best time would be to post in the morning.

7. The power of Hashtags #

Promotion through social media becomes incomplete without the use of hashtags, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even LinkedIn. Selection of industry-related hashtags helps in connecting with the proper niche of consumers. Hashtags, not only helps in connecting with the audience but also expanding the audience.

8. Make people share your content🙌🏻

The second most important thing in social media marketing along with the hashtag is creating share-worthy content. The content you post should make people want to share and retweet it. More shares and retweets imply more visibility.

9. Communicate with your users🗣

One of the most important features of promoting your business through social media is that it's live and interactive. Communicating with the users helps in building long-lasting relationships with them, which in turn will build brand loyalty in the long run. You can communicate with your users, through:

• Replying to their comments for the posts.
• Posting polls and quizzes.
• Collaborating with social media influencers.
• Posting - user-generated content.
• Share infographics.
• Post testimonials from customers.
• Interact through live videos.
• Create ephemeral content.
• Create contests and announce giveaways.
• Rectify the criticisms.
• Include Call to Action.

10. Integrate your platforms🔀

If you have multiple social media accounts across different platforms, integrate all the channels using backlinks and icons. By doing this, the follower from one platform can become follower on all other platforms as well.

11. Track your performance📊

Not all content you post will get maximum views, responses and shares. It is essential to track the performance of your social media strategy. With the help of metric tools like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, etc. Based on the results from the analysis, you can decide what works and revise the social media strategy.

So social media is not just a place to kill time alone. If planned properly, small businesses can even build an empire using it as an effective marketing tool.

Also read:
How is the Government helping Small Businesses & Startups fight the financial crisis?
What Is the Startup India Campaign?
GST Certificate: Benefits, Importance & Steps to Download
GST Impact on Small Retailers

FAQs

Q. What is social media marketing?

Ans: It is a marketing tool used across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., to promote the product of a business.

Q. What kind of business can use social media marketing?

Ans: It can be used by all kinds of businesses across industries.

Q. What is a Hashtag?

Ans: It is the symbol "#" used in social media content regarding a specific topic which can be viewed universally.

Q. Who are social media influencers?

Ans: A social media influencer is an expert in a particular domain, who posts credible, regular content on their social media profile.

Q. What is ephemeral content?

Ans: Photo and video content that can be accessed only for a few hours. It is available on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn.

Q. What is Call to Action (CTA)?

Ans: It is a statement prepared to stimulate immediate response to a social media campaign. It is the lifeline of social media marketing. "Buy Now", "Shop Now", "Subscribe Us" are some of the examples of call to action.