How to use social media marketing the right way for your business

Why social media is important & best practices for your small business 

Everything you need to know to get started with social media marketing

Social media is an incredible way to establish trust with your audience. I call it a part of your business “authenticity framework.”

Today, folks consume more digital content than ever before. So, it’s an incredible way to showcase your expertise, personality, and offerings in an exciting format.

For my clients, we don’t focus on selling via social media.

Frankly, it isn’t easy to achieve sales through social media without paying handsomely for advertising.

Instead, we focus on the three E’s of content marketing:

• Entertainment

• Education

• Empathy (human-centered storytelling)

Storytelling in social media for small business

Storytelling is the essence of human connection and communication. It’s a key component of a social media strategy to capture the attention of your audience.

We’ve been telling stories as a species since the dawn of time.

Stories help us entertain, educate, and empathize.

✔ Entertain: Humans are social creatures. We crave delight. Entertaining stories capture our attention and draw us in, especially when the story is relatable.

✔ Educate: Information is more readily absorbed and comprehended when shared in a story arc.

✔ Empathize: Stories are how we learn about one another and ourselves. Through consuming other people’s stories, we can understand and share the feelings of another.

Social is only one part of your small business marketing strategy. It must be infused with other tactics to accomplish your goals.

Identify your social media goals:

• Are you using social to drive traffic to your website?

• Is social a community-building platform for your small business?

• Are your social platforms a way to distribute other content (ex: blog posts, videos, infographics)?

Select your social media platforms:

After identifying your goals, you need to identify what social platforms your ideal audience utilizes.

This depends on your business model and ideal audience personas. If you don’t know who your audience is, set up a call with me. I can help you map your ideal audience personas.

• For example, Instagram is a great platform for e-commerce brands due to its many integrations with e-comm platforms.
• Pinterest is an ideal platform for lifestyle, travel, and service providers.
• LinkedIn is perfect for business service providers. 

Effective Social Media Tips for Small Business

1) HOOK: Especially with reels, tiktok, and other video content - people's attention must be captured within the first two seconds. The best way to create a strong hook is to consider what your audience wants. What is their problem? How are you solving it?

2) YOUR PROCESS, YOUR CLIENTS: Share your inspiration, the steps involved in your process, showcase client images/stories.

3) Share YOU: Share your interests. Share your views, goals, dreams, and lessons learned. Being genuine on social media is crucial for engagement.

4) 80/20 Rule: While you may be showcasing your products in many posts, only promote 20% of the time. What do I mean by this? For 80% of your content, the CTA should be to follow, comment, or check out your website/blog (passive pitch). For 20% the CTA will be to purchase, be a sale promo, or deadline reminders (ex: sale ending, final day to sign up/order).

Effective Social Content Generation

• BATCH CREATE: Select a time frame ranging from one week to one month and plot your content for each platform. Select a topic that will carry through all your content for that period, with your end goal in mind. Having a goal will help the content be most effective.

• CONTENT PILLARS: Starting with your most substantial piece of content, for example, a photoshoot or blog post. Write/film/produce that large piece, then break it down into smaller bite-sized pieces of content to repurpose for other platforms.

• SCHEDULING: When repurposing content, don't post the same content across all platforms on the same day. Stagger the repurposed content over the duration of a week. Don't be afraid to re-post! Test different hooks with the same core content. See what works best. + If something is successful, share it again.

  Don't fret too much over the algorithms and the constant updates.

  Focus on creating engaging content that your audience is interested in. No algorithm hacking or hashtag strategy can save lousy content. Be true to yourself, and post content you enjoy & are proud of.

Want a free social media reference guide covering best practices for Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn? >>>  Top Social Media Platforms to Market Your Small Business