It’s no doubt that social media is among the tools small businesses can use to maintain an active online presence. A recent survey even shows that 77 percent of small businesses in the US rely on social media for customer service, sales, and marketing.
Social media influencing and content marketing create many opportunities for social media users. Brands are now counting on both social networking sites and influencers to reach more customers and earn revenue.
Adopting clever social media ideas for small businesses can set you apart from your competitors. They help you gather customer feedback, increase your market reach, and build customer loyalty.
You now have to generate fresh content on your social networking pages to hook your followers and attract a new following. But it can be quite tricky to come up with ideas that will give your business a competitive edge. We’ll help you improve your social media game with these five practical ideas:
1. Start a Daily, Weekly, or Monthly Series
Though publishing random posts on your social media pages may keep the pages active, it will attract little engagement.
Create a series that allows you to interact with your followers day by day.
The content series will give your audience something to look forward to from your business. For instance, you may share inspirational content on Mondays to keep your audience inspired.
A content series will establish your brand as an exciting subject matter to your followers through repetition. It also adds ongoing value to your offerings. Use it to answer your customers’ problems in a storytelling style.
You may rely on social media scheduling tools to queue up posts in the series. These tools can help you manage your posts and give you more time to generate content. They also allow you to form a more profound connection with your followers with every scheduled post.
2. Use Trending Topics to Your Advantage
It’s common to have the best social media ideas when least expected. Trending topics come when least expected and can fade away within hours or days. With their seasonal nature, they can help your small business attract attention online.
You may reference a big upcoming event to get your customers excited about your offerings. Stay away from potentially sensitive topics that might hurt your online reputation. You may end up causing controversy and spending a lot of cash on public relations for damage control.
Encourage followers to tag their friends as you reference trending topics in your posts. This simple strategy will get your pages more visits if the content is exciting. Tag-a-friend posts also encourage genuine responses from your audience and attract new followers.
Online tools like Google Trends can help you compare topics to determine the most popular one. They can also give you insights into the popular questions searched by people in a particular season. Use your social media campaigns to answer some of these questions to attract attention to your brand.
3. Make Use of Bite-Sized Video Clips
Gone are days when video content marketing required a huge budget for it to generate leads. You can now record bite-sized video clips that run up to one minute with your phone and upload them to your social media pages. The clips don’t have to be full-blown commercials to keep your audience entertained and engaged.
Use the videos to share a milestone your brand accomplished to celebrate the victory with your followers. Sharing these victorious moments with your followers can prove that your brand cares about their input and support.
Check out the most popular videos shared by brands like yours on social networking sites. You can also take advantage of trending topics when creating short clips. Social networking sites like Facebook give you an option to track posts from similar pages.
4. Tap Into Giveaways and Contests
Run an occasional contest to make your social media posts more interactive and shareable. Prizes for your contests should be related to your business to give you more exposure. You may dish out free products with your company made by print shops to the contest winners.
Include terms and conditions in every contest or giveaway to cover your brand legally. They’ll help the contests appear more legitimate and attract genuine participants. Leave your company email address on the terms and conditions page for people to reach you with concerns or questions.
For instance, you can ask your followers to post about your business in good light using hashtags. The hashtags will help you track the posts and select the winners. Run contests when looking to launch new products or open new branches.
5. Go Live
Use the live feature on social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram to educate your audience and answer questions. The tool can also help your brand establish a more personal and long-lasting connection with your followers.
You may use the live feature to give loyal customers or followers a shout-out. For instance, you may roll out a customer-of-the-week program when going live to award or appreciate the most loyal customer.
Your live sessions may also allow you to do interviews with different participants. If your responses in the interviews are honest, they can make customers learn about your brand and trust it more.
Live sessions may be suitable for giving customer feedback. You get to show them that your business cares through the feedback given. Combining your responses with appropriate humor can make the live sessions exciting to watch.
Ready to Use These Social Media Ideas for Small Businesses?
Use some of these social media ideas for small businesses to give your social media pages a facelift. Never should you feel compelled to stick to one style of content creation. With several options at your disposal, your social feeds will now reach a broad audience, attract more followers and establish your business as an authority online.
Find more social media tips for businesses to propel your small business to new heights using technology from our article collection. Our content covers tech, travel, general news, health, and lifestyle topics.
