Why does my small business need a social media strategy?
As a small business owner, you might be wondering why you need a social media strategy? Isn’t that all a bit much?!
Having a social media strategy can actually make it easier to know what to post on social media and when. Without one, it can feel like you’re stumbling around in the dark.
A strategy will help you better engage your audience as you’ll know who you’re talking to and what you’re talking to them about. No more posting for the sake of posting. Or not posting at all, because you’ve run out of inspiration.
Your social media strategy doesn’t need to be War and Peace. In fact, you can create a basic social media strategy just by answering the following six simple questions:
1. Why are you on social media?
First up, why are you bothering with social media? If you’re going to spend your precious time on Facebook or Instagram, it needs to be bringing results for your business and aligned with your business goals. For example, do you want to drive more traffic to your website? Or perhaps you want more people to know about your brand?
2. Who is your target audience?
One of the most important steps in your strategy is identifying who is it you want to engage with on social media. Who is buying your product? Who can benefit from your service? Start thinking a little deeper about your audience and who they are. What do they do for a living? What do they do in their free time? What other brands do they like? All these questions will help you understand who you want to talk to through social media and what matters to them.
3. Which channels will you use?
Next, you’ll want to think about which channels your target audience uses. Where do they hang out? There’s no point in you putting all your efforts into a beautifully curated Instagram feed if your target audience is over on Facebook or LinkedIn.
4. What are you going to say?
Everything you post on social media needs to either educate, entertain or inspire your target audience. Deciding on three to five key themes that every post will fall under – also known as content pillars – will keep you on track, as well as showing your audience why they should follow you and what value they can get from doing so.
If you’re a coastal restaurant or rural gastro pub, your three content pillars could be showcasing your dishes and dining experience, highlighting things to do in the local area, as well as celebrating your restaurant team, suppliers and local produce. Whereas if you’re a holiday cottage or Airbnb apartment, you might choose to talk about the design details and unique history of your property, share availability, and invoke holiday memories and experiences for guests to recreate at your property.
5. When will you say it?
Your strategy should set out when you’re going to commit to posting and engaging on your channels. There’s lots of different, and often conflicting, advice about how often to post on social media. You don’t have to be posting on every channel, 20 times a day, every day. What’s really key here is consistency.
Post at a frequency to suit you and that you can realistically keep up with. Whether that’s twice a day or twice a week, being consistent in how often you post will help your audience know what to expect from you.
You’ll also want to think about when your customers or clients are online to make sure your posts have the best chance of being seen. Is it after the school run, during their lunch break or before bed? With an Instagram business account, you can see when your followers are most active just by clicking on the Insights button on your profile and then tapping on ‘Your Audience’.
Social media isn’t a one-way street. You can’t post and run. You’ll need to make sure you’re dedicating time to talk to your followers, answer their questions and comment on other people’s accounts. Try to be active in the channel just before you post and stay around for 15 minutes afterwards to respond to comments. Thank people who’ve taken the time to comment on your post and ask them questions to start a conversation.
6. How are you going to say it?
The images, videos and words you post on social media must reflect your brand and your customers. Is your company’s tone of voice chatty and light-hearted or is it more serious and educational? If you’re not sure about your tone of voice or content style yet, take a look at travel brands Kuoni, Jet2 and Contiki to see different styles from brands in the same industry.
If you’re posting across multiple social media channels, make sure to tailor your content to the individual channel. Each social media platform has its own quirks and conventions, such as hashtags, word counts and image dimensions. Taking those elements into consideration in your posts will best reflect you as a professional and competent brand on social media, just as you are in real life.
Now you’ve got your strategy, you’ll want to think about how you will measure its success. Look back at the ‘Why are you on social media’ question and the goals you’ve set. How will you know if you’ve succeeded? If you wanted more eyes on your website, check your website analytics at the end of every month. Has there been an increase?
Have a look at the inbuilt analytics within the social media platforms too. Which posts generated the most engagements? Why? Can you replicate those posts with new content? Which posts didn’t work so well? Perhaps steer away from that type of content in future.