Originally published 17/02/20
Social media is a vital part of any business’s inbound marketing strategy, as it’s an affordable and effective way to share and curate content, engage with their target audience and boost their brand visibility.
But companies can’t take a scattergun approach to using social media, and must instead be more considered and strategic, so they can add genuine value to followers and build their online following.
Let’s take a look at how each platform can be used by small businesses.
This broadly conversational platform offers businesses direct access to consumers through the creation of business pages, but what should you do if somebody ‘likes’ your page?
The likelihood is that they want to receive updates on new products and information, or they’re interested in events that you’re attending or hosting.
Ultimately, the platform can be used to share knowledge, so any insights you have had or come across should be posted to the platform, with a message aimed at starting a conversation with your followers. Remember that visual content rules the web, and the cliché of ‘an image speaks 1,000 words’ rings true.
Try sharing different types of content to see what resonates with your audiences, such as video clips, news articles and infographics. Once you know what they like most, you’ll be in a stronger position to drive better engagement in the future.
While you could in theory post all the time, dominating your followers’ news feeds can be a mistake, as you don’t want to spam people and end up annoying them.
You’ll need to find that fine balance through testing to see how your audience reacts best to your sharing. One update each day is a good rate for most businesses, but don’t be alarmed if you miss a day’s posting.
Remember that your business updates will appear on people’s feeds alongside photos of their holidays, their friends’ weddings, and videos of their new nieces and nephews’ first steps. So don’t take yourself too seriously, be casual, and focus on delivering value.
Learn more: How to make the most out of Facebook
Formerly known as Twitter, X is the perfect place for businesses to share a wide range of content, such as product promotions, online contests, general questions to their audience, funny thoughts about their industry, data or recent research insight, and the latest news.
As with Facebook, visual content performs well, so don’t forget to illustrate your posts with suitable images, but remember to mention people’s handles and stay on top of the latest hashtag trends to ensure your messages reach the right people.
X is a cluttered platform and cutting through the noise can be tough, so posting several times a day will increase your chances of getting noticed by your followers and of boosting engagement.
As with Facebook, your focus should be on providing value to your followers, though take advantage of the more relaxed atmosphere you’d find on X compared to more corporate platforms like LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is ‘the’ platform for business professionals to network and meet people in your field of work. Your LinkedIn followers will likely care more about the information you share with them, or the insights you bring.
The platform is great for video content, so get yourself a tripod and a microphone ready for when an idea comes to you and share your thoughts with your community.
Weekly posts on LinkedIn should be sufficient. Make sure to encourage your employees to share insights with their followers - this is a great way to get your brand out there without oversharing on your own feed.
LinkedIn is a professional platform for people to connect, so ensure your content reflects that sense of community-building. Your content should provide readers with tips on improving themselves and their way of working, or give them insight into new products.
Remember that articles with an image enjoy a 2x higher conversion rate than articles without.
Learn more: How to make the most of LinkedIn - A guide for mortgage brokers
A ‘how to’ video is among the top four most popular types of content on YouTube. Your audience will be looking for videos explaining content that would otherwise sit in very long blog articles where they don’t want to spend the time dissecting what they need.
Therefore, if you have longform content on your website that isn’t getting the engagement you were expecting, try applying it to the video format. If you’re worried about length, 2 minutes should be ideal.
As much as you can, as long as quality doesn’t suffer. The more content you produce, the more views you’ll get. Then, using the insights into referral traffic from the platform you’ll know whether it’s a channel you should continue to invest in.
Ensure you optimise for SEO, tag your videos correctly and use catchy titles. Using cards and calls to action will help send traffic back to your site. Remember also to check out your competitors, comments and your audience to understand what content resonates well with your followers.
Learn more: Using video to generate more leads
Once you’ve mastered these platforms, the next step is tracking.
You’ll want to dedicate resources to where you get most value, so ensure you’re armed with the right data analytics tools for each platform. The more data you collect, the more data you’ll be able to react to. So get social, and good luck!
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