5 Smart Social Media Marketing Tips for New Businesses

As the owner of a new, small business, you probably have more concerns and challenges than you have time to address.  There’s everything from maintaining cash flow to hiring the right people to protecting your new company with the right kinds of business insurance.

But all those concerns won’t mean much if your business doesn’t grow—and your business won’t grow if you don’t effectively market it.  Of course, the days are gone when marketing meant a blurb in the Yellow pages and the occasional ad in your hometown newspaper.  The internet changed all that.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

Today, 87% of consumers start their search for products and services on the internet.  That means you need an effective digital marketing strategy that connects with all those searchers—and to persuades them to buy your products and services.  That strategy should include everything from optimizing your website for search engines to sponsored ads, email and content marketing.  It should also include a robust social media marketing strategy.

Why?  The reason is simple:  to showcase your business to prospective customers, you need to go where they are, and where they are is on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest.

Said differently, social media sites represent an unparalleled opportunity for your business to connect with prospective customers for your small business.  To get an idea of the marketing opportunity social media sites represent, check out the metrics from HubSpot:

• More than 90% of Millennials are on social media platforms (not to mention half of Baby Boomers)
• More than half of the people on social media sites are searching for products and services
• Almost 70% of Americans use Facebook—and 75% of them are there for “professional purposes”
• More than 325 million people use Twitter at least once a month (and half of them say they bought a product they first saw on that site)
• More than 80% of leads for B2B businesses come from LinkedIn

WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

To begin, every business is different, with different customers, different goals and different marketing challenges.  For example, if you own a B2B company, your best bet might be to focus on LinkedIn because that’s where businesses connect with each other.  If you’re B2C, you might do better with Facebook and Twitter.

But there are some best practice social media marketing strategies which work the lion’s share of businesses, including the following 5:

1.  Understand your audience:  if you don’t know who your customers and prospective customers are, it will be a lot harder to connect with them on social media.  First, you need to know which social media sites they use—although it’s true that Facebook is the preferred platform for small businesses marketers (86% of them advertise on that site), you need to know what sites your customers prefer.

2.  Establish realistic goals:  You need a clear sense of your social media marketing goals.  For example, is your principal objective to push more traffic to your website, generate more quality leads or boost conversions?  You also need to ensure your goals are specific, realistic, measurable and attainable.  For example, it’s not enough to say, “we’ll increase lead generation.”  You need to spell out:

• how much of an increase you want (for example “15%”);
• over what period (for example “in 6 months); and
• how you’ll do it (“using Facebook sponsored ads)

3.  Be active on multiple social media sites:  different customers prefer different social media platforms.  Having a strong Facebook page is a good start, but the more sites you leverage, the wider your reach and the greater the odds your social media campaigns will be successful.

4.  Post content that resonates with your customers:  you need to give prospects a good reason to follow you on Facebook and other sites.  Do some homework to find out what their major concerns, questions and problems are and post content that addresses those concerns, answers those questions and solves those problems.  You can also boost engagement with smart promotions, discounts and free trials.

5.  Measure results:  to maximize the impact of your business presence on social media, you need to know what’s working—and what isn’t.  Make sure you’re using a robust analytics tool that will help you determine which content is generating the most leads, pushing the most traffic to your website and creating the largest number of conversions (one of the best is Google Analytics).

CONCLUSION

Effectively managing a startup small business or single-person LLC isn’t easy.  With all the issues you tackle every day, it’s sometimes smart to get the help you need from experts who can give you the advice and guidance you need to succeed.  That’s where we can help.

To learn more about the ways our business insurance and employee benefits services can help you achieve your principal goals—and take your business to the next level—contact us today.