The effects of quality social media for small businesses have been well-publicized. Social media provides an outlet for every business to connect with their customers. Here are some tips on types of material you can post to get the best of both worlds.
Company News
This can offer insight into what is happening behind the scenes of the business. Do you have a new front of staff member? Introduce them on social media – your audience can then relate to them in real life. Did you help out a charity or a had a funny moment in store? Post it, this engages both your existing and potential customers giving your business a personality.
Provide Special Offers
Promotions get people excited. Letting your audience know helps spread the word and you can also make sure they feel extra special by adding in extra incentive with an extra gift or a bigger discount.
Provide Valuable Solutions
Get into the role of your consumer. You are providing a product or a service to fulfill a specific need of theirs but there are probably a lot more needs that are not so prominent – indirectly help them. If you are a café, provide some fun facts about where your beans are from. You can even educate them on how to make a great coffee. Providing value is a great way to connect with your customers.
Take Your Time with Presentation
You take time to ensure your product or service looks nice, do the same with your social media posts. The age-old saying, “A picture paints a thousand words” is highly applicable with social media. Ensure the images you post are high quality (600px minimum width on Facebook, 440px x 220px for Twitter). Images that are high quality, bright, and relevant to your business and or audience are going to engage your audience a lot more than images copied from the web.
Implementing social media is a long-term plan. If you are seen as selling all day on social media then your audience is going to reject you and lose interest. The most comprehensive book on social media is “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” by Gary Vaynerchuk. The jabs are intended to be the warm-up, you are providing value by keeping your audience involved. Only when the time is right (infrequently) you can go for the sale aka right hook.
