At a time when the world is buzzing with digital conversations, your small business cannot afford to whisper! With billions of active users scrolling social media platforms, sharing content, and shopping, how do you plan to steal the show? The use of social media for small businesses isn’t just about posting marketing messages. It’s about fostering meaningful associations with your audience.
For entrepreneurs, business leaders, and marketers, here’s a comprehensive guide to maximize your social media presence by harnessing the power of social media. If you’re struggling for visibility and impact, remember that there’s a mammoth 4.49 billion population on social media waiting to be tapped.
From crafting compelling content to leveraging analytics, check out these actionable insights to boost the visibility of your brand.
Statistics Justifying the Importance of Social Media for Small Businesses
Before recommending tried-and-tested strategies to grow your small business on social media, let’s explore these statistics.
- The number of social media users is projected to surge to 85 billion by 2027.
- An average person spends 151 minutes on social media every day
- 89% of marketers use Facebook in their marketing endeavors
- As much as 80% of global marketers use Instagram for advertisement
- The global social media penetration rate stands at 59%
Source: Statista
Graph showing the global penetration rate of social media as of 2024, categorized across various demographics
6 Expert Tips to Skyrocket Your Social Media Presence for Small Businesses
Here are some expert guidelines for using social media for small businesses to grow.
Choose the right social media platform
With several popular social media platforms available, how do you choose the right place to grow your network? It all depends on your goals, as explained below.
- Facebook: The largest social media platform, Facebook, will be the right platform to generate leads and build relationships. New enterprises often start nurturing their audiences on Facebook.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn serves as the ideal platform for business networking, connecting both B2B and B2C entities.
- Twitter: Twitter is the ideal social media platform for businesses with audiences under 50 years of age. It serves as the right channel to share time-sensitive information like announcements, breaking news, and trending topics.
- Pinterest: If your small business needs a greater visual appeal, Pinterest will be the platform to go with. Fashion brands, restaurants, or wedding planners can drive their sales on Pinterest.
- Instagram: For businesses that require photo or video sharing to grow their audiences, Instagram is the right social media platform to choose from.
Source: Statista
Graph presenting Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram as the most extensively used social media platforms in 2024, ranked on the basis of monthly active users
Define your social media strategy
Once you choose the right social media platform, it’s time to work on your strategy. Digital marketers and social media managers generally create a content calendar, planning their posts throughout the month and scheduling them at peak visibility hours.
While developing the strategy on social media for small businesses, focus on the following aspects:
- The preferences and psychology of your audience
- Topics that they are interested in
- The usable content to engage these audiences
- The kind of content like stories, posts, or reels you need to create
- The right time to publish these contents to ensure maximum engagement
Use content scheduling tools to make sure that the posts are published on the right platform at the desired hour.
Engage your audience on social media
While creating engaging content for your audience on social media is the key, your efforts turn futile if you fail to engage them. Driving engagement is the key to nurturing relationships and winning the trust of your audience.
Compared to plain text, video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic traffic. Besides publishing video stories and reels, focus on the following strategies:
- Ensure a swift response to comments on social media posts
- Participate in conversations, providing valuable insights
- Share relevant information about your brand
- Share UGC (user-generated content) on various platforms
- Seek feedback from your audience and answer their questions
- Post polls and follow up on the results
- Address issues like criticisms and complaints
- Appreciate your customers for their online activities
Use analytics to tweak your strategy
While counting on social media for small businesses, it’s imperative to make informed and data-oriented decisions. Not all your approaches may be equally effective. Leverage the power of data analytics to tweak your approach as you grow your brand.
Analytics tools give a transparent idea of your progress on social media platforms. This way, digital marketers can identify the posts enjoying maximum engagement, including likes, comments, and clicks.
While crafting your future content for social media platforms, this data can prove invaluable. For instance, if you notice a certain type of post performing well, try to replicate the structure in your future posts. Likewise, marketers can experiment with fresh content structures in case they notice a particular type of post not performing well. Using analytics also enables data analysts to identify social media platforms that work best for them.
Take advantage of social media trends
For small businesses trying to grow their presence on social media, taking advantage of market trends can click. This explains why digital marketers keep an eye on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to identify current trends and develop relevant content for their brands on similar lines.
This is a proactive approach to boost your online visibility and foster a deeper connection with your audience. Successful virtual retailers like Ubuy incorporate this strategy to boost their social media engagement.
However, make sure that the trends you embrace align with your brand voice. Strike a balance between popular trends and your mission, preventing any negative image from impacting your brand.
Carry out competitor follower analysis
While most brands carry out competitor analysis, take your social media strategy a notch higher with competitor follower analysis. The approach involves examining the follower base of your competitors, you can gain a unique opportunity to understand the behaviours, preferences, and engagement patterns of potential customers.
Start by observing how these followers interact with your competitors. Next, evaluate the pages they follow and the hashtags they use. This data will help you tailor your content strategy on social media for small businesses.
Wrapping Up
With these expert guidelines, you can now spearhead your social media strategy and grow your business with confidence. Digital entrepreneurs and brand leaders need to look beyond numbers. Using social media to promote small businesses is all about building authentic connections and building rapport.
A strategic planning and meticulous implantation of these strategies can help your brand grow exponentially on social media platforms.
Fahad Khan is a Product Manager and digital marketing enthusiast who works at Ubuy Technologies. Content marketing, PPC, email, and social media marketing are among his areas of expertise. He has been exploring the field of digital marketing to share his pearls of wisdom with the whole world. He enjoys working on different niches and creating valuable content for readers.
Social media stock image by Lenka Horavova/Shutterstock
