Small businesses face a unique challenge when it comes to social media. On the one hand, social media can be an extremely effective way to reach new customers and promote your products or services. On the other hand, it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle of all the content that is shared every day. So how can you make sure that your small business’ social media posts are effective?
Here is how to have your Small Businesses Shine on Social Media
Know your audience
Understand the demographics, interests, and preferences of your target audience. Tailor your content to appeal to them specifically. Use your Google Analytics or my preferred analytics tool Matomo to best understand the demographics of those you wish to target. As you track the performance of your posts. Identify what works well and what doesn’t. Adjust your strategy accordingly to optimize engagement and reach.
Use captivating visuals
People are more likely to engage with posts that include visual elements. So take advantage of tools like Instagram and Snapchat to share behind-the-scenes photos and short videos. The image for this post you are currently reading might have partially influenced you to read this article. So it’s important to make the image relevant to the topic.
Create captivating headlines
Your post’s headline should be attention-grabbing, it should make your users stop scrolling, and give users a reason to click or read further. Use powerful words, create curiosity, or offer value to entice your audience.
But keep it simple
Avoid long, drawn-out posts that are full of jargon. Instead, focus on delivering clear information that your target audience will find useful.
Add Value
Your social media posts should provide value to your audience. Educate, entertain, inspire, or solve a problem. Offer tips, insights, or behind-the-scenes glimpses that make users feel they gain something from following you.
Encourage engagement
Be responsive. Social media is all about engagement, so make sure to respond to comments and questions in a timely manner. This will show potential customers that you’re responsive and interested in engaging with your audience. Encourage user interaction. Ask questions, invite comments, or prompt users to share their thoughts or experiences.
Spread the word
Take advantage of paid advertising. With platforms like Facebook or Instagram, you can target your ads to very specific audiences, which can help you get more bang for your buck when it comes to promoting your small business on social media.
What we use
Here at Binary Blackboard, we love to use Canva. It is an extremely powerful tool with many options for creating social media posts.
They provide many prebuilt templates with the ability to customize them to better match your brand. I always use the prebuilt templates as a starting point. You can search the templates by occasion, or even the platform you intend to use such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and many more.
With the templates, you can use your own images, but they do provide stock images, graphics, and a huge list of fonts. The best part about having the prebuilt templates with the ability to search by the platform in which you want to post is that the templates use the appropriate size for the different social media platforms. Without this, I always find it challenging to find the right sizes and dimensions since some platforms display posts in portrait mode, some in landscape, and some still display them as a square.
You can sign up for a Free Plan, but their Canva Pro individual subscription plan is only $12.99 per month. Get Canva Pro free for a month. I find it extremely reasonable considering how powerful it is.
You can use Canva in your browser, or download their free software/apps which work really great!
Canva is not only a tool for creating social media posts. You can also use it for print marketing such as Business Cards, Invitations, Mugs, Flyers, and even Logos. I definitely recommend Canva.
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