Every business in 2020 should be using social media platforms for customers to easily reach them and to promote their product or services cost effectively.
In fact, top brands are investing heavily on social media advertising for its ability to easily reach the right audience. With a predicted 20 percent increase in social media ad spend by the close of 2020 when compared to the same time last year, social media is a necessity for any business, regardless of size.
However, many small business owners shy away from using social media through fears that they will not use the platforms properly. Common questions are: can I post enough content, and will I respond to customers quickly enough?
FJP Investment below shares some top tips to help small business owners manage their social media correctly, following best practices used by the best digital marketers.
Finding the right balance for social posts is key. Posting too much might be overwhelming for your growing audience but posting too infrequently can be damaging also.
Make sure to only post what is relevant to your audience. Setup a calendar and schedule posts to go out as frequently as you feel your audience will resonate with the content. If you are having a ‘tailing off’ of interest in social posts, this might suggest you are posting too much. Knowing your audience will be vital here and will be learnt over time.
Whilst post frequency plays a part when it comes to social media success, the quality of the content you are sharing will be far more important. Having content that customers can engage with will not only help to retain customers, but the buzz can end up reaching a larger audience.
Your ads need to engage with social users without coming off as salesy. Giving the social user a benefit to clicking on the ad in some way is your aim here.
How can the product or service you are offering benefit your target audience? Instead of exclusively boasting about the cheap price or offer you are running, try and sell the benefits of what you do or provide.
With social media, conversation is always encouraged. Where applicable, keep the comments section open for customers to ask questions about the product or service. Being prompt and giving detailed responses that answer their questions will improve your chances of a sale. Understanding your audience will give you a better idea of the approach you should take here, younger users are often more open to humor in a response, for instance.
As touched on earlier, many small business owners are concerned that they will be unable to properly deal with customers via social media on top of the many other jobs that they must deal with daily.
Whilst real conversations are always encouraged, using a chatbot may be a saving grace to a small business. Whilst in the past chatbots were difficult to use and often answered ‘like a robot’, over half of all businesses now use a chatbot in 2020.
The reason for this is AI has developed significantly in the past few years, improving the quality of service they provide. In addition, having a chatbot implemented with social media to answer all the frequently asked questions saves you time and has proven to contribute to better customer service – people want an answer to their question as soon as possible. Where a chatbot does not adequately answer their query, a human can then take over.
Whilst it is important not to rely on a chatbot to deal with customers wholly, it is worth having one for the many benefits they provide and will continue to provide as AI enhances over the coming years.
One of the golden rules of marketing communication in 2020 is to treat customers as friends. In return, customers will begin to treat you with greater respect, building brand loyalty, increasing your chances of a sale, and the overall likelihood of a positive customer experience.
Understanding your customers’ standpoints surrounding current topics will also help to retain the customers you want. Making a stand when it comes to the environment or inequality for example will encourage real conversation – and brand recognition.
Benefiting from social media isn’t achieved solely through your own social channels. No business is too small to take advantage of using a social media influencer.
Influencers are often individuals that have built up a large following on their own social channels within various niches. Almost all sectors of business will have hundreds or thousands of influencers of various sizes.
Using an influencer, or influencers, is smart marketing as your product or service is being actively promoted by someone that your potential customers engage with. The audience is also very targeted, by following the influencer in your niche they actively have an interest in what you are selling.
As a small business, it is unlikely you will have a large budget, so you will need to do your research and communicate with a variety of small to medium-sized influencers and find a plan and price that works for you.
You may need to get creative here when finding influencers that can promote your product or service. If you can find channels that ‘cross over’ with your own product or service this is worth exploring.
A common mistake that business owners make when starting up their social media is to get set up on all the social channels they can think of, from LinkedIn to Instagram.
You need to know the channels that your target audience and current customers regularly use. If you are a start-up fashion business, for example, you will find significantly fewer potential customers on LinkedIn than Instagram.
It is a waste of time and potential money that can even be damaging to your brand, promoting on social channels that are not relevant to your audience.
Following the above tips should help to take the pressure off when setting up and running social media with your small business. Remember to utilize current technologies and marketing practices to make your job easier whilst allowing you to bring in and retain customers with greater ease.
Author Bio: Jamie Johnson is the CEO of FJP Investment, an introducer of UK and overseas property-based investments to a global audience of high net-worth and sophisticated investors. Founded in 2013, the business also partners with developers in order to provide them with a readily accessible source of funding for their development projects.
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