When to start social media for business
13 Proven Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs
hey everyone brian from buffer here
today I'll be sharing my top 13 social
media strategies and tips for small
businesses and entrepreneurs social
media has a huge opportunity to be a
brand awareness and sales tool for your
business but social media can also be a
huge challenge for those of us who wear
multiple hats throughout the day
particularly those who run small
businesses or entrepreneurs I know
because I've been there
these 13 tips and strategies are gonna
help you as small businesses and
entrepreneurs prioritize what's
important on social media so that you
can grow your accounts and drive sales
starting today let's get started let's
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kick things off with number one my
number one tip is you have to make a
commitment to social media social media
can be a real challenge so my top tip to
you as small businesses and
entrepreneurs is to make social media
priority for you and your business and
your employees start off by planning
create a strategy create goals what do
you see a success with social media is
it brand awareness is it sales is it
somewhere in between having a plan will
help you make that commitment to social
media right from the beginning so
starting with the plan understanding the
tools are gonna help you achieve that
plan and then looking outside to your
peers and competitors for what's working
for them is a great place to start and
my number one tip for entrepreneurs and
small businesses all right number two
and this goes back to what I mentioned
briefly in number one and that's
establishing some goals for your social
media program everything starts and ends
with goals and setting proper goals
based on desired outcomes is the most
important thing that you can do it's
super important to develop a social
media strategy that aligns with your
goals so that you can determine whether
your social media program is successful
or not 1 creating goals it's important
to be specific as possible so if you're
using social media to drive brand
awareness what are the metrics around
that goal that will help you to define
brand awareness is it likes traffic to
your website engagement to social media
posts or somewhere in between having
specific goals based on specific
objective is the first step in creating
great goals and the first step in
understanding whether your social media
is working
and of course those are super super
important because if you're off the path
and you're not finding success with
social media goals will help you to
define the next action step needed to
take to get back on the path of success
on social media tip number three for
small businesses and entrepreneurs on
social media is to remember to share who
you are as a brand or a business
remember that social media is social
people are on social media to share
content with their friends connect with
family members and yes of course connect
with you as a brain but people won't
want to connect with your brand
unless you're sharing things that are
human authentic engaging things that
speak to people on a human level which
is very meta I know it's hard to point
directly to what that means but the best
I can do is to tell you to remember to
share who you are what makes you unique
as an entrepreneur or small business is
it your values is that your company is
it your employees is your product what
makes you special why would people want
to follow you on social media what would
make them want to share your content
with your friends what makes you unique
as a company what makes you unique
personality wise and also keep in mind
that creating content isn't necessarily
just showing how your product can
benefit your users it's about helping
people it's about providing useful
relevant content time and time again so
that they go to you as a trusted source
of inspiration
number four setting time aside for
social media I know this can be the
hardest thing to do as entrepreneurs and
small businesses at buffer we all wear
multiple hats and finding time for
social media wasn't necessarily a
priority for us until we saw the power
of what social media can do for our
brand but let's take a step back the key
to establishing a great social media
presence is sharing great social media
content and for busy business owners
taking the time to create great content
can easily be pushed aside which is okay
what I encourage you to do is to take
time and batch time dedicated to social
media content creation find your most
creative time is it Monday morning is it
Friday afternoons set aside some
specific time each week even every
single day occur supreme vicious to
create great social media content and
engage with your fans on social media
because after you put out
great social media content people are
gonna want to talk to you they're gonna
want to comment on your links they're
gonna want to ask you questions about
you in your business a few hours a week
20 minutes a day even will help you get
ahead on social media by ensuring that
you're dedicating time to it which is
one of the most important factors about
creating a great community speaking of
great content tip number five is to
listen to your customers rather than
just simply promote it one of the best
things about social media is that it
offers an open-ended community to
communicate one-on-one with potential
customers and current customers that
type of open-ended communication is rare
these days and so social media offers
that opportunity to small businesses
entrepreneurs whose customer base might
be smaller to start out so connecting
one-on-one is super important when
you're looking to grow your social media
community when you're first starting out
so what I mean by listening to your
customers is what kind of questions are
they asking in community forums in your
product on social media are these ideas
for potential blog topics social media
content videos you name it
taking the approach of listening to your
customers rather than simply promoting
your product not only gives you greater
insights into your customers preferences
their fears their challenges but it also
builds a loyal customer base that you
can lean into later down the line tip
number six focusing your efforts you've
probably heard the saying it's better to
be on one social media network than
spread thin across many well that
statement is absolutely true by focusing
your efforts on one social media
platform as opposed to two three or four
you're gonna hone your skills you're
gonna learn the nuances of that channel
and only until you figured out that
specific channel can you start to branch
out to more social media networks I
think the biggest misconception for
small businesses and entrepreneurs is
the amount of time it actually takes to
be successful on a social media channel
takes a lot of time takes a lot of
effort takes a lot of content and so by
focusing your efforts on one channel you
increase your likelihood of success
tenfold maybe more strategy number seven
for small businesses and entrepreneurs
is automating your processes so we've
already talked about the benefits of
using tools like buffer to schedule your
social media posts and analyze your
posts but there's a lot of other
processes that you can automate in the
time that will help you be successful on
social media once you start to get the
feel for what kind of content is working
on social media you can use tools like
zapier I have TTT to automatically add
articles that you add to your pocket
account for example or you can use tools
like canva Animoto
to quickly create graphics for videos
saving you hours of time in the process
you can hire an intern to help you
create graphics or videos or schedule
social media posts there's tons of
people out there are willing and looking
for great work social media
possibilities are endless when it comes
to automation so using tools like buffer
it was like camber Animoto zapier I have
TTT hiring out work to help with the
more tedious tasks are all things that
businesses and entrepreneurs should be
thinking about if you want to focus your
time on more important tasks like
running your business
speaking of tools tip number eight is
picking the right tools for your
business so when thinking about tools as
a small business or entrepreneur I like
to break it down into five different
sections of potential tools you have
your collaborate tools your attractive
tools your acquired tools your retained
tools and your measuring tools those
five tools will help you be successful
on a daily basis under the collaborate
tools this is how you're gonna help
collaborate with freelancers employees
within your company tools like slack
Google Dropbox paper Trello are all
great project management tools that will
help you collaborate on things or ideas
that you think will be successful on
social media
under the attract stage this is where
you get to implement a lot of fun tools
that will help you attract customers
both on social media and another
marketing efforts as well so tools like
WordPress to help you write blog posts
or manage your website
MailChimp to send emails buffer to send
social media posts like I said before
canva Animoto to help you create videos
and graphics number three the acquire
stage is where you start to see more
robust tools in the acquisition stage of
your customer journey so CRM like
HubSpot Salesforce Marketo MailChimp to
send email drip campaigns buffer to
continue to send out your social media
posts then of course you have your
retain tools and these could be things
like NPS scoring surveys type form to
help you send out customer surveys offer
to continually send out social media
mailchimp to send automated emails to
your customers based on specific actions
you can also use advertising platforms
like Facebook Twitter Linkedin Pinterest
to help remarket to customers who have
been on your website and then of course
last but not least number five is the
measurement stage of tools this is where
you implement things like Adobe
Analytics Google Analytics lots of
options out there to measure how you're
doing on social media and to help like I
said before direct those steps of
actions towards the things that are
gonna work in the future strategy number
nine creating a social media calendar
having a comprehensive overview of
everything you want to send out to
social media within the next few months
even within the year is irreplaceable
for brands and businesses looking to be
successful on social media a good social
media calendar consists of major company
events major company product releases
and major holidays within whatever
country or even the world that you want
to celebrate as a company a great social
media strategy means posting
consistently and what better way to do
that then to hold yourself accountable
through a Content calendar create a
unique calendar it can be an Excel
spreadsheet it could be a Google Doc it
doesn't matter how you do or whatever
calendar service that you prefer create
a map whatever the event is put it in
your social media calendar create a
small mini marketing plan around that
event and make sure to have all the
messaging set up so that is a small
business when you go to post you're all
set to go your calendars ready to go and
you have a great social media posting
strategy already in place strategy
number 10 remembering that passion helps
to create amazing social media content I
find that the biggest challenge for me
on social media is creating great
content on a consistent basis as a small
business or entrepreneur it can be
incredibly time consuming and difficult
to find the topics that are gonna work
over and over again on social media so
what I suggest you do as a business
owner or as an entrepreneur is pick a
topic that you love to talk about now
this topic can be semi related to your
brand it doesn't have to be specifically
about your product or your brand it can
be in the sphere of your industry the
more passionate you are about a specific
topic the easier and more fun it will be
to actually go out and find content or
create original
around that topic and don't forget the
more passionate you are about a topic
the more passionate your fans are gonna
be to they can tell they know when you
love a subject or not and when you have
a passion for something I guarantee you
that your audience will share that same
passion with you number eleven learning
from the best will be their first to
admit that we don't have a ton of
resources we don't have a lot of time to
commit to creating great content we just
don't have what bigger better brands
have in terms of social media resources
so the best thing you can do as a
business leader is to follow peers and
competitors both inside and outside your
industry you can follow them by creating
Twitter lists or using Facebook pages to
watch tool to set up a list of brands
that you know post consistently great
content then once you have a list of
great brands or influencers in your
industry check back once in a while what
are they posting about are they using
videos are they using photos are they
using text only updates what kind of
things are they talking about subjects
types of content having a deep deep
understanding of the trends and the
things that are working in your industry
will do wonders for your social media
content and not only that watching
others within your industry will spark
ideas like you can't understand until
you've actually been there and seen
content in its wonderful creation
process so get out there create a list
of great brands in your industry and
follow them on a weekly basis strategy
number 12 of 13 don't forget that
engagement drives growth on social media
whether you have a company of a hundred
or just one engagement on social media
is one of the most important factors you
can use to drive growth of your channels
over time we talked about it earlier in
this video but engagement really is the
key in the core to every social media
strategy in other words when you create
great content you're going to get more
engagement from the audience it's a
byproduct of great content so it's a
commitment you have to make upfront and
understand from the very beginning if
you have people who are regularly
engaging with your content
you'll activate them as strong loyal
users by responding to them answering
their questions helping them to share
your content even further you might even
think about creating some sort of
referral program that rewards people who
share your content you might also start
a Facebook group or a slack community
that gets your power users on social
media into the same place so that they
can share ideas talk to each other learn
from each other and really spread the
message about your brand it really only
takes about 15 minutes a day to be
successful with engagement and
persistency will pay off in brand
loyalty and power users on social media
last but not least strategy number 13
for small businesses and entrepreneurs
when it comes to social media and that's
don't try to be all things to all people
one of the very first questions you have
to ask yourself on getting started
social media strategy is what are you
all about make it very clear from the
get-go what you are all about on social
media being all things to all people
across all social media networks is just
simply unsustainable so having a clear
specific and concise topic that you are
expert and are passionate about on
social media will help drive a more
niche audience that will interact with
your content on a higher level it also
gives your audience a reason to come
back time and time again if they come to
your social media profile and never have
any idea of what to expect of you in
terms of content the chances of them
coming back are very slim but if they
know they can go to you for great
content on a specific topic then they
are much more likely to interact with
your content on a daily basis because
they know what they're gonna get it's
like starting a business and trying to
sell your product to every single person
it just doesn't work but if you start in
a niche industry and you sell a very
specific product to a very specific user
that product has a much greater chance
of success focusing on a very specific
topic the one that you are passionate
about one that you can speak as an
expert on will tremendously help and
your chances of success on social media
in the long run I hope you got something
of use in our 13 strategies for small
businesses and entrepreneurs if you
enjoyed this video today we would
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lot more videos around social media and
marketing strategy over the next few
months and we'll
you'll be there to join along with us so
next time I'm Brian with buffer
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