Social media marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses looking to make a big impact. Although, creating a profile and just posting content isn’t going to maximize its effectiveness. This brings up the question: What is the #1 way a company can be successful with social media marketing?
Quite frankly, there’s no one way to guarantee your triumph on social media. There are, however, a set of best practices that can vastly increase your chances of achieving your goals. Check them out below:
The 8 best ways a company can be successful using social media marketing
1. Find your target audience and create your buyer’s persona
First and foremost, you need to streamline your efforts. And the best way to do that would be to figure out your target audience and then create your buyer’s persona.
Your target audience is the general group of people you want your brand to reach. For example, let’s say you’re running a brand that sells running shoes. Your target audience would, of course, include runners but you would also want their basic information. That alone streamlines your marketing efforts.
A buyer persona, on the other hand, is much more detailed. Here, you’re creating a person’s profile that includes all their basic info but also includes their jobs, their interests, who they trust, their buying tendencies, and other things. This helps you craft your message to better connect with your audience.
2. Determine the social networks you should put effort into.
It seems like every few years, another social network rises among the ranks of popularity. I mean, I remember when we only had Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as the holy trinity of social media. Now, we have TikTok, Snapchat, Youtube, and many others that’ve joined the fray.
As a small business, you don’t necessarily have the manpower to establish your presence on all of them. Trying to would likely compromise your success.
Instead, see what platforms your audience spends most of their time in and focus your attention on those. As a rule of thumb, though, Twitter is a good place to post frequent updates.
3. Know your niche.
And by that, I don’t just mean understanding the ins and outs of whatever industry you’re in – because you probably know that already. After all, if you run your small business in Upstate New York, you’re likely passionate about it, too.
What I meant was that you should seek information on the demand for your products and services, as well as what your competitors are already doing.
This way, you can establish SMART goals and set a plan in place to one-up your competition.
4. Be consistent with your brand’s personality
All brands and their products/services present solutions to certain problems. For example, Canva and Adobe Photoshop are solutions to your need for graphics. One of the main differences between them, however, is how they’re represented (i.e. their personalities).
To me, Canva comes across as that easygoing dude that everyone gets along with. Photoshop, however, is like the mysterious dude at the back of the bus that’s actually more interesting once you get to know him.
Your brand has its personality, too. Let its character shine so it also attracts the right people. To give you a better idea, the image below shows 5 of my favorite brand archetypes.
5. Create a content calendar.
A content calendar is, well… a calendar that tells you what to post on certain days. This simple concept comes with a myriad of benefits that make your life easier.
For one, it takes out the “oh what do I post now?” days out of the equation. That, in turn, allows you to create your content in advance.
And, when you have a pool of content at the ready, you can schedule their publishing ahead of time, too. This helps you be more consistent with your posts as well as makes marketing on social media less troublesome.
6. Repurpose your existing content into fresh ones.
While we’re on the topic of content, they don’t all have to be brand-new ideas. Sometimes (many times, actually), your posts only have to reinforce your existing pieces of content.
For example, let’s say you had a widely successful recipe for Halloween cookies that you posted 2 years ago. Come October this year, you could always just post an update to that recipe.
Or, you could use the same recipe but change the way you present it. So, if you posted a photo of your cookies 2 years ago, maybe you can post a reel of the recipe this year. Oh, and if you need ideas on interactive social media posts, we got you covered.
7. Publish your posts at a time when your audience is most active.
Many social platforms discourage posting too many pieces of content in a small amount of time. Doing so will make them think of your posts as spam.
So, a better course of action would be to post fewer bits of content at times when a majority of your audience can see it.
There are general guidelines that you can follow for the best times to post if you don’t have a large enough following yet. But, as your brand grows its audience, make sure to check your statistics and adjust accordingly.
8. Engage, engage, engage!
Remember: What makes social media one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing is that it makes transactions more human.
That being said, interacting with your audience is CRUCIAL if you want your social media marketing campaigns to be successful. Plus, this engagement is also another way you can let your brand’s personality shine through.
Conclusion
In summary, the best way your small business can find success with social media marketing is to apply a variety of practices that make your life easier while also making your audience a part of the conversation.
These practices include streamlining the people you want to market to, studying your competition, planning and creating your content in advance, and fostering engagement between your customers and your brand.
Now, if you feel like it’s a lot to do, we have 3 sets of plans that can help unload some of that trouble.
