Effective Ways To Promote Your Business On Social Media

Worried about your web presence? Know you’re supposed to promote your business on social media, but not sure where to begin?

Town and Country Bank and Peoples Prosperity Bank are here to help because we’re invested in the community and want area businesses to succeed. In this article, we’ll give you a list of tips for promoting your business effectively online.

Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been engaged with social media for a while, you’ll come away with something new to try, a clearer sense of goals, and simple organization tips to keep your social media posting from falling through the cracks.

Start Where You Are

As a small business owner, you may already have social media profiles for your business or perhaps you’re starting from scratch. The first steps are to assess your situation, take stock of what you have, and develop an action plan.

• What are you trying to accomplish with your business’s social media presence? Examples of social media goals for local businesses include: expand your community outreach, make your products or services more widely available by promoting them, share job offers, and network with other local businesses.
• Are you on the right social media platform? The type of business you have and the demographics of your target audience will determine the best platforms for you to promote your business. For example, Facebook is generally considered a “must-have” because its users are so demographically diverse--chances are, your audience is there, too. This Forbes article has more information on choosing the right social media platform for your business.
• Who is responsible for monitoring and updating your social profiles? Perhaps you can’t afford to delegate social media at this point. But as your business grows, consider assigning a specific person to manage your business’s social platforms. This could be someone on your own staff, an outside agency, or a freelancer who specializes in social media.

Build upon your profile(s) with additions and updates to information

For potential customers seeking information about your business, your social media profile is an important opportunity to succinctly communicate what you do while also linking to your website and other social handles. Here are the basic components:

• About Tab: Add links, including your other social media profiles/pages.
• Story: Who you are, what your company does
• Contact Info: Email, phone, website.
• Branded/Special Hashtags: Can be added to your social media bios to promote other accounts or ventures associated with your business.

For more profile tips, check out this article on successful social media profiles from Marketing Guru Neil Patel.

Schedule your posts in advance with a content calendar.

Busy entrepreneurs have good intentions for posting on social media, but if it’s not scheduled in advance, it’s likely not to happen. Use free tools like Hootsuite’s introductory plan, which accommodates up to three social profiles and 30 scheduled messages.

Provide value with the content you post

Before you actually post, figuring out what to post is one of the biggest challenges for small businesses. Here are some tips:

• Use the “one-in-seven” rule to balance each purely promotional post with six non-promotional updates.
• Be helpful. For example, if you have an interior design company, you could post paint color combos or other design tips.
• Be funny. Social media is, after all, a form of entertainment for many people. So be fun and make people laugh. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
• Be conversational. Pretend you’re at a party, talk and engage with people.
• Include hashtags, links, and images with each post.
• Post a quote or celebrate a social media holiday.
• Use photos and videos to show your business and employees in action and provide a “behind the scenes” glimpse.

Show off your quick response time when issues arise.

No matter how hard you work, every business has to deal with unhappy customers at some point or another. When someone leaves a bad review or posts a complaint about your products/services, you can turn a negative into an opportunity to highlight your responsiveness. Keep the details private by taking the discussion into a direct message, but leave a simple comment in response so other users will see that you take customer feedback seriously.

Treat your social media presence as a community.

Being a local small business means you’re part of a real-world and online community. Follow other local businesses and look for ways to interact with their posts. Repost employee and customer-generated content. Make your social media account a place where people want to gather to talk about your business as well as the larger community.

Grow your audience with targeted ads and boosted posts.

As with hiring a social media manager, paid advertising may not be in your budget immediately. But once you have the cash for it, social media platforms offer some of the most niche-targeted advertising opportunities. Get your message in front of your target audience based on age, location, interests, and more.

Partner with Town and Country Bank and Peoples Prosperity Bank for all of your business needs.

The bankers at Town and Country Bank and Peoples Prosperity bank understand your challenges and needs as a local business. From deposit accounts to business lending and everyday advice, we are here to help you grow your business. Contact us today or visit one of our branches in Springfield, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Lincoln, Decatur, Mt. Zion, Bloomington, Quincy, Edwardsville, and Fairview Heights.