Social Media and Your Small Business

Still not using Social Media to your advantage to help your company grow? Here are a few tips on how you can take your businesses Social Media platforms to the next level right away! 

Happy August, everyone! How did we already get to the back to school season already? This month we want to kick off our blog by talking about Social Media and the benefits it has for your Small Business. Of course, social media and its creation and importance to business and our clients' business is one of our main forms of bread and butter. But, we also love to share how wonderful and important it can be for you and the growth of your company. Even though our culture has been taken over by our smartphones and smart devices, it is still a new and exciting form of media advertisement. We get so excited talking about it and sharing how important it can be for your business, and we want you to get just as excited as we are about its amazing potential! 

In this fast-paced world, running a business of any size requires you have to have a social media presence to stay relevant and in competition with your competitors. You also need it to stay in the presence of your clients and dream clients. But for small businesses, in particular, it has become a necessity to have a social media fingerprint to be known by your dream clients and to share what your services are. No matter what product or service you offer - there is a place for you and your company in the online social advertising world. Remember, the word "social" is involved - it can be fun, interactive, and engaging if you let it. You will have an audience and you will have the opportunity to grow your following and clientele. You can grow your business and grow the reach of how many people know about you and your company. You might have to invest a little time and money to grow a successful online brand, but it will be worth every single penny you spend. The applications and fields that this incredible platform of advertisement lives on are free. All you'll be paying for or working on yourself is the creation of crisp, clean, and creative content that represents you, your company, and your product.

This is one of the many things that Creative Consulting offers our clients - the creation of content and sharing it with your clients in a fast and reliable way. We know that if this world of advertisement is new to you, it can become very overwhelming. But don't stress! This blog is going to focus on some easy tips to use for your small businesses social media and some easy ways on how to execute these tips!

Social Media platforms are there to give you an audience that is ready and willing to connect with you and what you're selling. Remember, it does NOT have to be a scary or expensive experience. With these tips, you can create a powerful advertising machine for your company to reach new markets, dream clients, build sales, and bring attention to you and your company. The number of tips and information you can learn that is out there is endless. But here are a few ideas to get you started or refresh what you've been doing already!  

It's easy to let social media get put on the back burner and leave very little time and money for it when you own your own business and you wear so many hats. Remember, social media doesn't have to be a huge time commitment. It just needs to be something that you schedule into your workflow and work week just like any other work meeting or event would be. Aim to always work smarter, not harder. 

1. Understand Who Your Target Audience Is! 

Your target audience is a mix of your current clients who want to continue using your products and services, your fans and supporters who believe in what you do, and your dream clients who are going to bring you more business in the future. If you are unsure of who this audience is, you can look into your Google Analytics account and activate the interest section and see what groups of people and what the demographics are that are connected to your brand. You can also use and experiment with Facebook Ads to reach out to people who have certain interests, are within certain demographics, and fit the age group that gravitates towards your products and services. This knowledge can also help you decide on what social media platforms would be the most beneficial for you to use. For example, the current trend is that a more mature age group gravitates towards using Facebook and responds to Facebook ads. While on the other hand, younger generations lean more towards using Instagram and responding to Instagram ads on Instagram.

   2.    Use Your Content More Than Once
You will get new clients and new eyes to your social media platforms every day. They will have been caught by a post or advertisement that you used and will want to learn more about who and what you are. Content such as blogs you've written, articles that have been written about you, successful ads, and successful pictures and videos that you've posted are very important. They have the potential of becoming reusable posts that will draw in a new audience by introducing them to what you do and will remind your current audience why they love your brand so much. By recycling content you can also receive a better return on the investment you spent having these pieces of content created. You can also create a new response by seeing how well they do on different platforms and new channels. If there is a hidden gem buried way back in an old post that is still important and relevant to what you're doing, there is nothing wrong with using it again! It was good content then, and it is still good content now. 

   3.    Batch Ahead of Time
​What is batching? It is creating content and scheduling your posts ahead of time for when business and your schedule gets crazy and busy. Go ahead and do yourself the tremendous favor of getting in the habit of batching your content. This time-saving tip helps you never let your social media posts get left behind and keeps your posting consistent. It also helps your presence to your clients and future clients stay strong and active. A stale and inactive social media account is ignored, avoided, and dropped off of Google searches faster than you can say "social media" - so don't let that happen to you! Pick a day every week to plan out what your posts will be for the upcoming week. Are you running a sale? Celebrating anything? Have an exciting announcement to make? Plan out each day's posts based on your companies needs and schedule. Write the content, pick out the perfect image or website you want to use for each post, and schedule them ahead of time. You can do this manually on Facebook or use several programs created just for this purpose. By the time your batch session is done, a whole weeks worth of social media content is ready to go and you don't have to worry about it until your next planning day, if an exciting 'in the moment' post arises, or when you need to spend time commenting back or reaching out to your clients. And, if your week gets crazy, you can take comfort in the fact that this task has already been check off your to-do list! 

See? Social Media can be exciting and easy to do once you put your mind to it. Keep on learning and exploring this important media marketing tool. Make it unique, worthwhile, and as exciting as your brand. Don't look at this advertising tool as a burden but greet it as an exciting opportunity to add to your workflow. It has the potential to take your company above and beyond your current goals and aspirations and help you dream big. So pick up a pen and your smart device and get to work! You have an exciting adventure ahead of you!