There’s no denying it. Social media is here to stay, and it’s transforming the way small businesses function in the market.

To a small business owner focused on running the day-to-day, planning social media campaigns, consistently producing content, and actively engaging with an audience might feel overwhelming. In fact, over 40% of businesses don’t track the ROI of their social media marketing at all – they have no idea if their efforts are well spent.

Managing your social media to build brand recognition, generate leads, and grow your business may appear daunting, but there are measurable, achievable steps you can take to give yourself a better shot at social media stardom.

We’ve pulled together some of the best strategies we’ve come across that will help you take advantage of the opportunities social media has to offer. Whether you’re just getting started with your social profiles, or an active participant who hasn’t had much success, the following social media marketing tips will launch your take your game to the next level.

1. Make a plan for each social media channel

You need a focused strategy, and a planned step of actions to conquer social. Your planning should cover each social media channel your brand or business is active on. Think about how your action on each channel will help you. And write it all down, so you can track your progress and refer to it over time.

Don’t know where to start planning?

Start by answering questions like “why is your brand social media?” and “what social channels can you find your clients on?”.

If you’re new to social, definitely keep your social profiles to less than three – for the sake of your sanity. Small business in particular without a dedicated social media manager will struggle with actively handling more than three social channels.

2. Be Predictable. Stay consistent.

The most important ingredient in any social media plan is content. Keep your social channels active by sharing and creating interesting, relevant content.

As an entrepreneur, you are the expert opinion on your industry, and your product/ service category. Clients come to you for your know-how, so don’t shy away from sharing your insights in blog posts, facebook updates or tweets.

The content you share can be in a variety of forms and sources. Social media isn’t limited to just the written word. In fact, photo and video posts create more engagement than written content, with videos having twice the engagement as photos on Instagram.

Your audience is following hundreds, thousands of other social profiles, so if you’re not publishing new content as often as the other accounts out there, it’s easy to get lost and forgotten. A routine posting schedule will keep you consistent and focused – include the following in your social media marketing plan:

Schedule for how often you will publish on each social media channel
Type of content suited for each social media channel

3. Watch Those Metrics

Your time is your most important investment – start tracking your social media activity right now. Social platforms capture some of the metrics that you want to look for, such as:

Facebook Business Page reach and engagement
Twitter Business Profile Impressions, visits and mentions
LinkedIn Business page impressions, clicks and interactions
Instagram Profile likes, comments and mentions

Track these metrics on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis, looking for overall trends to gauge how effective your campaigns have performed. Identify successful content that received a strong positive response from your network, and reshare it. And share more content like it!

4. Don’t Forget to Interact!

Be responsive to your network, make sure your profiles notify you when you receive a comment, share, or message. This tip is critical to social media marketing success – be more than that business profile that shares links all day. Bring the “social” to the media 😉 That means interacting as a way of duty – you must be committed to acknowledging all those who reach out and interact with your profiles.

Your social media stream should be more than just broadcast posts with the typical headline and link to an article. Essentially you want to switch from one-way social media posts to two-way posts. The difference is two-way posts encourage conversation and communication. On the other hand, one-way posts leave little to no room for anyone to reply back with anything other than “good post” or another generic response.

Make it a point to engage with your network in-between broadcast posts, you can try:
Replying to posts in your network – give them kudos or strike up a conversations!
Share/ Retweet content that is relevant to you
Like posts

If you’re sharing a link, ask for feedback and opinions or tag someone so they’ll reply. Think of your social media posts as a part of a conversation.

5. Get Inspired by Your Competitors

Seek out your competitors and the social profiles of businesses similar to yours –  analyze what they’re doing that you may be missing, specifically:

Type of content they share
Other profiles they follow and interact with
Profiles following them
Their posting schedule – when and how often they post
Their most popular posts

Once you have a sense of what’s working for other social profiles, develop a plan for how you can learn from their winning strategies. Look for ways that you can be unique, adopt ideas from your competitors but always look for ways to improve and make things your own.

6. Provide Value

Simply put, why should anyone follow you? Consider the perspective of your ideal client, who’s likely following hundreds of other social profiles – how will your social profile make an impression? Your content should offer a perceived value tailored for a specific social media channel. For example:

Share “sneak peeks” and “work-in-progress” content on Instagram to give your followers an inside look

Curate and share the best content in your industry on Google+
Offer real-time customer support on Facebook Messenger

By offering tailor made, brand-centric content on social you’ll give your network a chance to get to know your product/ service on your terms.

7. Partner up

Getting those first first few followers onboard is often the most challenging part of building any social media presence. And to make matters worse, people tend to shy away from following business profiles with a small follower count and limited social engagement. They’re more apt to follow a brand or a company account with thousands of followers and hundreds of likes, retweets, comments and shares on every post.

Do not buy fake followers.

Instead, look for opportunities to partner with established profiles, social influencers that your clients would identify with or brands that they follow. A shout out from these profiles will let their followers know they trust and recommend you – this type of endorsement carries a lot of weight in social media, letting clients know you’re a brand to recognize and trust as well.

Building relationships with influencers by regularly sharing their content and engaging with their posts, and allow the opportunity to develop organically. When the opportunity presents itself, develop some type of content or cross-promotional event like a giveaway that’ll allow you to reach their audience while also giving them some value as well.

8. Write Search Engine Optimized Posts

Social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram have powerful search engines of their own, with search bots much like Google’s crawling through all social posts matching keywords with content. Make it a point to include targeted keywords and phrases in your social media posts and profile makes your company more searchable.

Social media optimization is becoming more advanced and accurate because these sites and apps have a lot of content needing to be categorized. Get into the habit of using common hashtags, even on Facebook, and relevant keywords within your social media posts so that you have a better chance of being found by people searching for topics related to your industry.

9. Make Hashtags Work for You

Research commonly used hashtags and keywords relevant to your product/ service, and make it a point to work these into your social media posts. Hashtags easily one of the best ways to amplify your reach across a social platform, increasing your chances of being discovered by your ideal client. Keep a close eye on trending hashtags in your network and look for opportunities to jump in on the conversation, there’s no better way to make friends!

10. Don’t Be Shy

Some may warn you against endorsing your products/ services, urging instead to leave it to the client to seek information. Although we agree that a barrage of sales pitches isn’t an effective social media strategy, occasionally sharing a link to your services or your online shop should be a part of your strategy. There is definitely a balance between being spammy and appropriately promoting your value. A good guideline is to focus most of your social media content on non-promotional but related topics. Consciously create a balance between sales pitches and interesting posts that won’t turn off your network.

Put these tips to good use! Taken from the successful social media strategies of established brands, these simple actionable tips  will set you in the right direction – towards long term, sustained growth.

Social media is just the journey, your website is the ultimate destination!

If your social media strategy is effective, prospects from network will end up on your website to learn more about your product or service, possibly with the intent to purchase. Ideally, your website will be up and running before you begin building a social media presence, allowing you to convert your social interactions into sales.

Ready to step your brand up? Get in touch.