Why Social Media Matters to Your Business

You may use social media in your personal life, but what is your business doing to promote itself across social media? Are you creating a consistent message or brand that your followers recognize and are engaging with?

Social media can be daunting when it comes to your business, and it may make you wonder whether you actually need to be using it. According to HubSpot, 71% of consumers are more likely to make purchases based on social media referrals. That means they are looking at your profiles and posts and expecting to learn who your business is. It can be hard to know where to start, but it helps if you break your strategy down into small, bite-sized steps.

Audience

One of the most important aspects to understand is who your audience is and what social platforms they are using. Every social platform brings in a different crowd: Facebook users tend to be older than Instagram users, so you need to determine the age group of most of your customer base and post your content where they are scrolling.

Not sure who your target audience is? Here are some easy ways to figure it out!
1.) Pay attention to your current customers- those coming into your store will be a good representation of who your social followers are and which platform they will be on. If your customers are more Gen-X, chances are Facebook is where they will be rather than Instagram. If they are millennials, then it may be a mixture.
2.) You can also rely on the analytics from your website and social platforms to discover where you are seeing the most engagement and results. Maybe your audience loves when you share community posts on Facebook and infographics on Instagram. Knowing that data can help drive where your business thrives on social media.

Develop a Plan

It might be easiest to post across your platforms as an idea strikes you (after all, that’s what we do with personal social media content). But to get the most out of your brand’s social media, you need to have a plan to make sure you are sharing content that will help your overall goals. Goals can be more sales, more engagement from customers, being an industry leader or all these in varying degrees.

Some helpful planning tips are:
● Aim for 2-3 posts a week so you don’t overcommit your time and overwhelm your audience.
● Use a content calendar. Sitting down and looking at all the posts for a week or month at a time can help ensure you don’t miss important posts.
● Schedule your post in advance. Targeting the best times for your audience, using a posting tool, can help relieve some of the pressure to make posts live. Platforms like Facebook have a scheduling tool you can utilize for free, but a third-party system may also be a great route if you are scheduling posts for multiple platforms.

These are just a few helpful tips in managing social media for your business. It can seem daunting to start, but it is an important aspect to add into your company's marketing routine. If you’re considering forgoing a social strategy, just know that, according to WordPress, 78% of small businesses attract new customers and engage existing ones through social media. So, if your business isn’t visible on social platforms, someone else's is and that might be the difference between a sale or not.