Small Business Research and Enterprise

In the last two years we have seen social media for business develop. Your web presence works in the same way as your business card does and writing good content means we attract new people to our business. There are so many ways of doing that and trying to do it all could take a lot of time you do not have. For small businesses social media is slowly becoming a vital endeavor, however talking about clicks, engagement, tweets and stats might make you want to scream!
So let’s talk about 5 main things you need to think about when taking your business online.

1. Get on Facebook.

There are more than 50 million business pages on Facebook. First things first, it acts as a website for those who don’t have one yet. However, Facebook has many different features in which you can interact with your potential followers. It also has the most amount of users in comparison to other platforms with each user having an average of 140 friends. You can use Facebook Advertising a cheap marketing tool. The algorithms are similar to that of Google AdWords however thanks to the amount of personal information logged into Facebook willingly you can get quite detailed with your targeting. Finally it also provides you with a mobile ready page for someone who hears about you on the move.

2. Don’t do EVERYTHING!

Consider the pros and cons of the platform before creating a page.
We know there are so many different platforms available; Instagram, Twitter, WordPress, Flikr, Snapchat, Pinterest and many more. Where do you start? Before you jump in and get started on all of them research into which platform suits your business. If you are an information based service would you do better on Twitter than on Instagram? Or if you are a retail service you could promote your products on Instagram. The most important thing is to make sure the platform suits your service otherwise there is a chance you could be communicating without an audience.

3. Create a Shop front for your business

Once you have chosen your platform, ensure it suits your business brand. Create your page to look like a shop front to your business. Make it suit your audience and engage with good and interesting content. It can be really to just write posts that sell your product or services but this can get boring. Show your audience you know your market with associated posts too! This is a great way to sell your intelligence around your product making your audience trust you!

4. Share Content Frequently

Your social media platforms will not help you if they remain inactive for days on end. If someone hears about you and looks you up to find the last time you posted was in 2012 they will wonder what you’ve been doing for the last 5 years. There are plenty of tools available to help you schedule your posts in advance – we use Hootsuite and its FREE! No business is the same; success differs on channel, your goals and what you put out there in your content.

5. Be patient, yet attentive!

Let’s be honest your following isn’t going to grow overnight. It is exciting and worth doing but take the time to construct the content and engagement properly. You can buy followers but they won’t remain loyal to you. You want your brand to portray a message that makes people want to remain a part of your family and the only way to ensure that is to make sure you don’t forget about them and what they want!

Writer Jesi Vaghela – Events and social media officer at City Business Library