Boost Your Brand: Strategic Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

Social media is a great way to get brand awareness. With millions of people using at least one social media platform daily, it’s a great way to build an audience and connect with them in a way other forms of advertising don’t allow.

With several different platforms to choose from, the first step is deciding where to focus on. If you're just starting, it’s best to begin with only one or two platforms. The more places you post, the less time you can devote to strengthening your presence on each.

Check out our blog here for help picking the best social media platform for your business.

You’ve picked the right platforms; now it’s time to post the right content.

3 Easy Steps

1. Create a Content Strategy

Start by creating a content calendar to structure your posts in advance. Maintain a consistent posting schedule and ensure your content aligns with your marketing goals.

Creating and updating your content calendar allows you to get creative with your content, allowing you plenty of time to determine what will get the most engagement. It’s essential to diversify your content as well, posting a mix of images, videos and text to keep your audience engaged. Stories can also provide a great way to connect more personally.

As you create content, consider what your audience finds valuable concerning your business and your products or services. Think about it this way: will this post trigger the target audience to think or feel something?

2. Post & Repost Content that Adds Value

While determining what content to post, consider what it’s saying. Content that adds value will perform the best with your desired audience. This includes more than just educating content (but it does include that); it includes entertaining content, industry news and business-related content.

The mindless scroller is always the person you want to be thinking about because this is the most ordinary person on social media. So you have to ask yourself; how can we as a business provide value to this person's experience on the app? Reposting content is very valuable, and reposting with your own added text offers more value to something and helps cement your business as a leader in your industry. How and what you post or repost is situational and completely up to you, but it's necessary. You need to show that your business is involved with its social media following. If you fall asleep at the wheel or don't prioritize social media, it will be obvious. 

3. Engage with Your Audience

Posting regularly isn’t enough. Social media is the perfect place to build a community and to do that, it’s important to communicate with your audience. It’s important to make them feel seen and heard.

It can be as simple as replying to a comment from someone on one of your posts, and it can be as wild as running a promotion on social media where followers can win something you're giving away. 

Another aspect of this that people only sometimes think about is that social media might be how people try contacting your business. Maybe you sold them something that they're unhappy with, and as a result they DM you or post on your page saying they're unhappy with a product somehow. While the people who handle your social media might be different from the people to take care of issues with customers, it's still a golden opportunity to make things right. You can still make someone feel heard if they're upset with you. They might even be impressed with how you handled and rectified the situation. You have to look at everything, no matter what it is, as an opportunity.

Other Things to Consider

Once you’ve considered your audience and planned out your social media calendar, there are a few other things you’ll want to consider to get the most out of your social media accounts.

Social Media Advertising

In addition to a regular posting schedule, consider using social media advertising to reach new people and gain a larger audience. With specific targeting options, you can reach the exact group of people you want to with only a small budget.

Stay Authentic to Your Brand

Making a great strategy is useless if it doesn’t match with your brand voice and image. It’s important that you stay consistent with your branding across every platform and channel you advertise and market on.

Analyze and Adjust Regularly

Don’t get complacent with your social media campaigns. It’s important to review the stats behind your campaign regularly. Adjust to improve your performance so you’re reaching the most people with the type of content they’re interested in.

Start Elevating Your Social Media Strategy Today

Don’t wait any longer to take advantage of the millions of daily social media users. Begin creating your strategy for your social media campaigns. It’s easy to get started, but it doesn’t hurt to call in the professionals. For help building a social media profile that will wow your target audience, contact the ThreeSixty team today.

Or for more tips to help you develop a strong strategy, check out our blog about boosting your business on social media.