As a small business owner, it may be challenging to build a strong social media presence from the ground up. Trust us, it’s worth the effort it takes to gain a following. Here, I have outlined a few steps for creating effective social media presence.

1. Create SMART Goals

2. Establish Credibility

Social Media provides an opportunity to showcase your business’ strengths and expertise. This can be very time-consuming to establish initially. Credibility can be established by writing blogs and/or creating extensive informational videos, but do not let these big projects hold your strategy back. You can establish credibility in small bites through education, story-telling, or simply highlighting your competitive edge on Social Media. Promoting these ideas through social media will generate conversation among your customer base, while establishing credibility for your future customers. Credible businesses are often seen as a resource for their target market. By being authentic and helpful, customers will naturally flock to your business.

3. Push for Engagement

Blasting out generic questions to your followers is simply not enough anymore. Your goal on social media should be to start a genuine conversation with your target market. Invoking emotion, humor, and being consistent with branding are a few of the many ways to push your target market toward sharing your content with their followers. By creating content that pushes for engagement, other social media users begin to promote your brand for you, leading to amplified results. When you reach high engagement with a post, consider promoting or boosting the post to reach an even larger audience.

Engagement expands beyond your own feed. Engaging with industry-related groups or forums can help you to reach more of your target audience in an authentic way. Facilitate in-person or digital events to engage with the community further.

4. Be Responsive

It is important to respond to both positive and negative feedback from your business. This will bring delight to the customers who already enjoy your products and serve as damage control when an individual has a bad experience. One of the most effective ways to minimize the effects of a bad review is to craft a caring, passionate response that attempts to rectify the issue.

Time is of the essence when people reach out to your business. Customers desire to feel important, and responding to their messages, comments, and/or reviews quickly can show them that your business cares. Clarification can be the make or break point of a sale. A customer is most likely in the deciding stage of the purchase when they message your business, and if you respond quickly enough you can capitalize on their current mindset. Plus, if they’re left questioning an aspect of your product, they may begin to research and purchase from your competitor.

5. Analyze Results

After putting in the effort to make your social media shine, it is vital that you track the results of your posts. Try to figure out why successful posts were effective, then recreate similar elements for your next post. While it may be difficult to create engaging content, repurposing and republishing content is also an effective way to boost engagement on social media. Here are a few tips for analyzing the performance of your website..

These tasks may seem daunting at first, however a regular social media scheduling routine can minimize the time spent. Establish a weekly or monthly schedule and update the content as you see fit throughout the month. If you have any questions about starting or continuing a presence on social media, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.