Social Media and Small Businesses

As a handmade business owner such as craft or small business, most of us do every aspect of business ourselves – from purchasing, finance to marketing.

Few years back the concept of using social media platforms for marketing a business did not even exist. Today, many platforms have marketing potential such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

Social media strategies for small business owners

Importance of social media marketing for small business or craft businesses.

1. Creating Awareness.
2. Sending direct traffic to website or blog
3. Direct selling

Benefits are very rewarding in social media marketing. Social media marketing is valuable for businesses of any size and industry and finding customers on social platforms has direct impact on sales. To get such a positive result one must have a powerful plan or strategy to do the right way of marketing on these platforms.

Here are 5 most useful strategies for social media marketing :

#1 Give people what they want – Most commonly people login to social media to connect with other people or to be entertained and for shopping purposes generally use Amazon or similar websites.

#2 Knowing about others – Post little updates like sneak peek into life so audience knows about you and feels connected

#3 Education or How to: – Information seeking – This is when people need information they search. Engage with people with something they can share knowledge on. Check this article how information is shared. https://thenourishraise.com/three-methods-of-introducing-solids/

#4 Offering value – Adding value to customers via tutorials, videos, and livestreams

#5 Finding focus and developing a strong strategy 

• Set goals
• Choose platform
• Create Content
• Share content
• Connection or Communication
• Analysis

Let’s dive into more 

🎯Setting goals: 

I have talked to many small business owners or marketers who are doing amazing on social media but they do not know if what they are doing is having an impact on business.

Choosing goals can be tough. Social media marketing should never be just scheduled and shared posts. Also only promotional posts will make followers go away from the brand. Studying peers will also help choosing or setting goals. 

Here are most important goals –

• Increase brand awareness
• Increase community engagement
• Increase website clicks

🌐Choose platform:

• In this internet era lot of social media platforms are evolving, it makes people to hang out or pass time on different social platforms. As a social media marketer or small business owner it is important to identify where the ideal customer of their business is spending most of its time and accordingly choose a social media platform.
  

  📝Creating Content:

• There is a very famous quote “ content is King “. This is proven time to time with all marketing tools, be it Television, news print media or internet driven social media platforms meaning value added, authentic content always engages and attracts new customers and helps retain existing customers.Creating a social media content calendar customized to your business will help. Figure out what type of content resonates with the audience, how often posts should be shared, and source of content creation.Content should be created visually enriched, text or infographics, few pictures and canva added features, and videos with crisp information. Video content especially is innovative way to increase engagement on social channels but creating videos can be intimidating. Whether you have stage fear or camera shyness, you do not have necessary tools for video shooting or do not have proper light or location it do not have to be difficult.Useful tips for video content creation
  1. Create content that is meaningful for customers who are already your fans.
  2. Use previous content’s success to inspire new videos.
  3. Make your videos accessible.
  4. Do not neglect video SEO
  5. Analyze video performance
  6. Turn your videos into additional social asset

  Sharing content:

• Once the content calendar is ready and relevant content is created it is time to share it on social media. Hashtags will help categorize or focus an audience which will be relevant to the industry. Also timing of the post also plays a crucial role for more visibility. 
  

  Connection or Communication:

• Content shared should be engaging. More than 65% of the customers are most likely to buy a product if they heard of you or seen your brand on social media. Turning current followers in future customers is very critical. Build relationships with engagement.
  

  📈 Analytics or Reports –

• After setting goal, creating content, communication comes important part that is measuring growth with the help of analysis or reports. Some most important metrics to track given by social media platformsImpression: The number of times an individual saw the messageEngagement: Likes, Shares, Follows, or Retweets, etc.Visits: Number of time someone visited your profile pageFollowers: The number of individuals who follow you on social media.Oftentimes digital marketing is confused with social media marketing. I have penned down concepts and strategies involved in digital marketing in an article. For clarity do visit an article about digital marketing
• Also if you want to do it yourself invest in a good course where you can learn digital marketing with practical implementation at DigitalDeepak
  

  Power of social medial in small business

• In summary – Blueprint of Social media Strategy for small business as follows – 
  

• Define Goals

  SMART Goals for your business

  S – Specific – Be more specific or focused about goals

  M – Measurable – Sales figures in numbers will give more clarity

  A – Attainable – Realistic possible genuine goals are most likely achievable.

  R – Relevant – Will this goal drive business in forward direction positively.?

  T – Time – Bounded with time Goal will most to next level altogether.

  Targeting audience  

  Age – location – income – education – career – interest

  Platforms 

  Before posting on platform here is a checklist

  • Which platforms suits best for your brand?
  • Frequency of posts -Which days, and what timing of the day?
  • Lifespan of content – 
  • Engagement – customer care, replying to social media posts 
  • Are you engaging with user generated content
  • Can you automate part of social media 

   

• Combine organic growth with paid advertisement.Take a deep breath ! Few things might be overwhelming for you. Let me assure you do your hard work the best and let social media drive your sales. Stay informed about platform changes, new trends and continually think how your business can grow better and evolve online. Build a strong online presence.Recipe for successful business online presence comes from 3Ts – Time, Technology and Talent – curate, nurture and use it optimally.

For every business owner it is always recommended to know about all aspects of digital marketing which is mantra for marketing; do check this article to know more :https://digitalbox24.com/basics-of-digital-marketing/

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