A BASIC GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

CREATING A SOLID STRATEGY

As with any business strategy jumping into social media blind simply doesn’t make sense. Before you join any network, post any content

or share any links you need to create a solid strategy.

Here’s a quick guide to get you started.

WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS

What are you hoping to accomplish through social media? Would you like to increase sales, by how much? Do you want to reach a wider audience, how many?

Or maybe you want to engage with your customers, what percentage of them?

These goals will direct your social media strategy from now on. Write them down and post them, physically or digitally,

somewhere you and your team can refer to them often and check your progress.

FIND YOUR AUDIENCE

If you’re considering developing social media channels for your brand, you already have a target audience in mind (if you don’t,

we have bigger problems to discuss about your business).

Targeting your audience on social media is not as simple as casting your net over Facebook and hoping for the best.

Did you know that there are more than 800 social networking sites or apps in existence?

Your audience is online, you just have to know where to find them.

Be careful not to get caught up in the hype of what they call the “Big 7” – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram.

Use your imagination, talk to your consumers and find the watering holes of the people most likely to be interested in your message.

DEFINE YOUR IDENTITY

You did not get to this point in your business without careful consideration of your branding. What we’re talking about here is a

sub-category of your messaging guidelines.

Communicating online is not necessarily the same as communicating in the real world. And communicating via email is not the same as communicating in social media.

What really matters is consistency. With multiple employees or even if it’s just you, having a clear vision of how your brand should

look, feel, sound and interact is imperative.

As new issues come up you can add to this document and refine your identity so you don’t repeat mistakes.

BUDGET

As with any piece of marketing or advertising, set a budget ahead of time. Use your defined goals to gauge how much money you want to invest in your campaign.

You’ll likely need to budget for design, content creation and maintenance for each channel you decide to go after.

The amount is up to you, but don’t skimp on any of these areas. A social media channel without good management can do more

harm to your brand than good.

CONTENT CREATION

Believe it or not, posting content to your social channel might be only the second part of being on social media. While there are a variety of automated tools for this purpose, it’s important

to have real oversight of your content.

Simply sharing links to other peoples’ work is never the best way to gain a following. You should be posting original images, links to your website, photos and other unique items

that show off your brand’s identity.

Then you can mix in other items of interest if you need a filler. Expect to either dedicate a large portion of your own employees’ time to this or outsource

it to another party, but don’t ever skimp on content.

ENGAGEMENT

Engagement is the most important (and challenging) aspect of building a good social media following. Even with all of the best content in the world, if you never interact

with your followers, you’ll never be getting what you can out of social media.

Engagement is more than just “liking” comments or sending replies to complaints. True engagement has to be a real person on the other end of the keyboard, putting

thought into replies to their customers.

Your end goal should be to create a conversation with your audience, so that your social platform is a place they feel they can discuss grievances, give praise or share with their friends. That is the secret to getting the word of mouth machine churning.

GOOD LUCK!