Social media isn’t exclusive to big business anymore. With over 4.7 active social media users globally, a consistent and engaged social presence is crucial to growing an audience and connecting with customers in 2023 — for businesses of any size.
As small businesses look to navigate this wild and often unpredictable space in what will be another defining year, leader in social media management, Hootsuite, is sharing five ways to boost social media marketing to drive business growth.
Determine the right social channels for your business and steer clear of cross-posting
In the fast-paced and rapidly-changing social landscape, competition can be steep for social networks looking to attract new audiences — and as a result, many are introducing new trends and features often on a daily basis. For businesses, this means constantly being sidetracked and challenged to consider which features and platforms to consider as part of their social marketing strategy.
To be most effective, it’s important that brands take a step back and assess which platforms (and features) are most likely to drive business objectives.
Every platform comes with unique benefits, as well as different audiences, and it’s critical that brands recognize that their audience not only gets different value from different networks — they explicitly use different social networks for different purposes.
To maximise success this year, small businesses should ask themselves which platforms will be the most effective in driving return-on-investment based on how their audience is using each platform and, in turn, which ones they should reduce their focus on, or even let go of all together.
At the same time, as social continues to evolve at lightning speed, the weight seems to increase on small businesses’ shoulders, who are wearing multiple hats and are largely limited in the time and resources they can allocate towards social marketing.
This often makes shortcuts — including cross-posting content on different social platforms — tempting for small businesses wanting to get the job done quickly and with few resources. In fact, Hootsuite’s research found that 52 per cent of survey respondents said they cross-post content to multiple social platforms with as few changes as possible, with a mere 18 per cent creating different posts from scratch for each platform.
While common, this social strategy can often lead to the detriment of the business. As each social platform provides different value to its audience, cross-posting the same content means running the risk of audiences seeing repeated content — and also seeing content that is not suitable for what they are using the platform for, leading to boredom and/or frustration.
In 2023, the most successful small business marketers will be the ones that focus on creating content that’s well suited to those platforms, rather than trying to keep up with every feature-level change the networks throw their way.
Get ahead with content planning and scheduling
As new trends are constantly emerging on social, social marketers are challenged with needing to spontaneously create and push content, and strategically planning content ahead of time. While striking a balance is ideal, developing a content calendar and scheduling social posts is the more effective way to ensure impactful, quality content is being published — consistently.
Mapping content out ahead of time also allows businesses to be more strategic with the content they are sharing and increases the likelihood of engagement with their audience — whether that’s through aligning social posts with relevant upcoming days of note (think: Black Friday), or planning engaging contests and giveaways for followers to participate in.
To get started, businesses should look to develop a content calendar that maps out the content for at least the month ahead, if not longer. This should include drafted copy, accompanying assets such as imagery or video, any important links, and timing for the post.
As well, leveraging social media management tools at businesses’ disposal is a key way for small businesses to get organised, while lightening the load in the long run. Once a content calendar is in place, businesses can create their social posts in advance using scheduling tools like Hootsuite to have them posted automatically, at the right time.
Foster a community on social and reap the rewards
While brands are increasingly being called on to be more creative and authentic with their content to reach and capture the attention of existing and prospective customers across every channel, fostering a sense of community among followers is arguably just as important. For small businesses in particular, committing to community management is key to seeing results on social.
As social platforms are increasingly driven by algorithms that favour engagement, businesses can expect to be rewarded the more actively they interact and engage with users.
Engaging with customers online, and fostering a sense of community on social channels should be thought of as an extension of a business’ customer service, and can be achieved by creating two-way interactions with customers online — whether that’s through responding to comments and answering questions, or simply re-sharing a tagged story. This engagement will result in a network of customers who feel connected to the brand and are more likely to become loyal, repeat customers — on and off social.
Tap into trends (and so much more) with social listening tools
Running a small business is no easy feat. With a million and one things that need constant attention, it’s nearly impossible to allocate endless time to monitoring social media, on top of all the other daily tasks a small business owner bears the responsibility of.
To make keeping up with social a more efficient task on the mile-long list of things to do, small businesses should consider implementing a social listening tool, like Hootsuite’s, which would enable them to work smarter, not harder.
By gleaning valuable insights on brand sentiment, customer pain points and needs, as well as intelligence on trending topics and competitor activity, businesses can make sense of thousands of conversations happening in real time, to keep up with industry trends and get ahead of customer needs.
Measure success every step of the way
While an appealing benefit to running a small business is (oftentimes) discretionary reporting, measuring the impact of their social marketing outputs must not be an element of reporting that is overlooked. As small businesses test and iterate on social to identify what resonates best with their audience, collecting and analysing performance data is the only way to better inform future content strategies — and is a key element of growth and success on social.
Social marketing doesn’t have to be a guessing game. With social media analytics tools, businesses can track progress over time and easily access a metrics-driven representation of which platforms and content type are generating the most engagement with customers (through likes, comments, shares, clicks, etc.) — allowing them to put more effort behind the content that is working, and pivoting from the content that isn’t.
Keeping up with the pace of social, and adapting strategies along the way, is challenging for businesses of any size — but particularly for small businesses.
Having the foundational skills to navigate the ebbs and flow of the wild world of social is essential to success, and that’s where expert guidance comes in — Hootsuite’s Social Media Marketing Course is an invaluable resource for small businesses to grow their social presence, and in turn, their businesses too.
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