Now that you have been reeled into social media and believe it can help grow your business, what are your next steps? It can seem so overwhelming. So many experts telling you what to do, so many buttons, so many numbers. What happens now? Well, let's talk.
Start Slow
First and foremost, don’t do more than you can keep up with. Keep things simple and small to start. You can always grow, but social media can cause your small business more harm than good if you can’t keep up. Sometimes we talk to companies who want to do it all - which is awesome! But sometimes it’s best to pick one or two social platforms, and get those handled, before you add more.
Decide what matters
You want your social media strategy to target the appropriate audience. It is important to determine who you want to reach and which social media site will target that demographic. Who are your customers? If they're retirees, they might not get your KiKi references.
Messaging is another important part of your social media strategy. What message do you want to convey and how? It’s important that the focus of the message is centered more on being helpful versus selling to the customer, no one wants to be sold to all the time, you know? So, ask yourself, what do your customers want to know? How can I help them? And what’s important for you to share? What’s a core part of your business or who you are, what you stand for, that you can use your social platforms to share?
For example, we work with Auto Collision Specialists, an auto collision repair facility in Greeley and they focus a lot on child passenger safety (you know, kids in car seats). So they share a lot of car seat news - how to properly install a car seat, how to buckle those wiggly kids in correctly, and car seat recalls. It’s important to the mission of their business, and their customers like having the info.
Get it scheduled
Make sure that you have lined up the right personnel who can create the right content to post at the right time to drive traffic to your business and keep it there. It could be someone within your business; someone in marketing, or maybe your office manager or receptionist have the time and know how. Have them create a social media calendar, what they want to post and when they want to post it.
Don’t forget the engagement part of social media. It’s a conversation. Customers want to be heard, and know that someone from your organization will respond. Your social media manager should to be able to respond to comments on your social channels and communicate through social media.
Sound overwhelming? It doesn’t have to be. Just take it one step at time. You got this!