A guide to utilising social media for local business

Social media has become one of the primary drivers for big business, but did you know that it can work wonders for small business owners too? Making social media work for you takes a bit of effort. Like any medium, ideally, you’ll be using it to build leads that you can then convert to sales, so let’s take a look at some great methods of promoting your local business on social media.

Facebook Ad Buys

Facebook currently has 1.7 billion users and buying ad space on Facebook to tap into a segment of this number is incredibly easy for any business. When speaking with my colleagues, I find it amazing how many people aren’t using this valuable resource to garner leads. To set up a Facebook Ads account, you simply can go to www.Facebook.com/ads or clicking “Manage Ads” in Facebook settings.

If your business has a blog, Linkedin, or product site, you’ll be able to select that as a clickthrough location. Following this step, you’ll have to craft some witty content that will appeal to your ideal customer. It’s important to fall back on the old marketing adage, Keep It Short and Simple (K.I.S.S) and produce content that your potential user will be enticed and want to click on.

After this step, you’ll need to click on demographic info for your target audience. As a business owner, you probably have a good idea about who likes your products or services most, so feed that information in here. Information such as age group, interests, and geographic location can all be used as ways to refine who Facebook views as your audience.

The next step encompasses budget and this is where you’ll have to do some heavy consideration. With Facebook ads, you can establish how much you’d like to spend per day. For a smaller business, many users will spend around ten dollars a day. This ten dollars will go towards Facebook’s $0.57 per like or $4.01 per click. You can also have boosted posts, which is about $6.35 per thousand people reached.

It can get expensive fast, which is why Facebook has the previously mentioned budgeting option. Additionally, finding a trusted and experienced digital marketing agency to manage your Facebook page will help to save your time and increase more sales for your business.

Utilising Social Media News Feeds

Another way to reach out to additional users and build leads is to try to directly reach out to users through their news feeds. This method can be used in conjunction with a Facebook ad buy, or it can be used through a pre-existing audience that shares your content.

In any situation, showing up on the right person’s newsfeed can really give you a boost in customers. Having a current user/viewer share your content is a new form of grassroots advertising that I feel many marketers and business owners don’t use properly.

Ever since the rise of social media, users have been seeking forms of infotainment through their news feeds. Viral content is very popular on Facebook at the moment, so tapping into these as a way to promote your small business can really help you grow. Let’s take a look at some of the types that you can use:

• Videos

This is the current king of the viral craze. To capitalize on this, you can create a funny or quirky video that also leads users back to your page or lets them know about your product or services.

• Quizzes

Social media quizzes test your potential leads to something that they think they know. To properly capitalize on this, surprise your users, and at the end seek information that can help convert them. This is usually an email.

• Lists

Similarly to quizzes, these are a form of infotainment that news feed browsers will visit for information. Utilize these types of posts to at first entertain your potential leads then finish with a bit of information gathering for future conversion.

• Informational Blog Posts

These will lead to a blogging area of your business site. If you feel that you have valuable insight that might benefit potential customers, craft it into an interesting blog article. For a field like custom vinyl banner printing, you can create a write up on modern techniques. If someone views you as an expert in a field, they are more likely to approach you for business.

Developing Social Media Strategy

Direct social media management for your business’s social media accounts can sometimes require that you hire an effective social media community manager. These managers interact with any customers who visit your business’s social pages and answers any questions removes damaging posts or adds new content via a social media content calendar.

Employees who manage your social presence will be responsible for tracking retweets, wall posts, posting content like “Snaps” and updates, and generally leveraging any new platforms to bring you new business.

These community managers are a key step in any customer journey mapping because they operate on the front lines of your social media business interactions. Customers will convert with the proper community manager, as long as they are knowledgeable about your business and products.

Conclusion

Having a proper social media marketing strategy is imperative to growing your business and achieving success. I hope that this article has given you an idea of some of the techniques that you’ll need in order to grow your social media presence considerably. Mastering the social world will take work, but with the proper effort and due diligence, you and your business will see a great return on investment.