Is it really necessary to invest time and money in social media marketing for local businesses? Yes!

Why? Let’s discuss this in detail!

According to a report by Statista, the number of Facebook users in the US has reached 302 million in 2021 and is predicted to become 324 million by 2026. Combined with the fact that the overall population of the country is around 334 million, we can comfortably say that every two in three US citizens are Facebook users – and you can use this demographic to boost your local business when marketed well.

So, how exactly can your local business utilize social media platforms like Facebook to reach out to your target audience? We’ll show you how. Just keep reading!

Why should you Invest in Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses?

If the above data about the popularity of Facebook is not enough to persuade you to invest in social media marketing for local businesses, here are a few other benefits to think about. Here are a few advantages that go beyond connecting with your target audience through social media.

A strong social media strategy with an active presence will help you to:

•       Stimulate brand awareness
•       Create publicity and excitement about upcoming events, sales, product releases, and more
•       Generate new leads and customers and consequently refer them to your website to increase traffic and sales
•       Gather reviews and offer users an easy way to communicate with your brand
•       Improve your reputation in the market with helpful, valuable content.

Apart from these general benefits of social media marketing for small businesses, it is important to note how different it is from other digital marketing channels. That is because the utility works in both directions, as both you and your customers benefit from communicating with each other through social media. The availability of multiple touchpoints on a social media platform can build a stronger and more loyal customer base.

Now that you understand the benefits of investing in social media marketing for small businesses, let’s find out how you can do it right.

Tips to Use Social Media Marketing for Local Business

1. Start with a plan

Before you begin your social media campaigns, remember that every good social media strategy needs a good plan. A good plan will give you a clear goal of what you are trying to achieve. This ensures that you can keep track of your ROI from your social media marketing business. Here are some tips to develop a plan for your social media campaigns:

•       Study the competition
•       Assess your existing efforts
•       Set social media goals and objectives
•       Take inspiration from others
•       Create a social media calendar

2. Determine the social media platforms for your business

To ensure that you are using the best social media for small businesses, you will need to conduct some research. This will help you understand how your audience spends their time online. You can use different social media platforms to address different audiences, in different ways. This way, you can connect with your audience on different platforms for different purposes. For instance, you can use Twitter for customer service and Facebook to build an audience and generate leads.

3. Understand your audience

You can use effective social media marketing ideas to micro-target your audience. But first, you need to know your audience well. You can start by gathering data about your customers and use social media analytics to analyze that data. Once you have done that, you can create buyer personas that help you understand the best ways to communicate with your audience.

4. Build relationships

Social media marketing for local businesses lets you directly talk to your customers and followers. You can build relationships over time instead of asking for a sale upfront. Also, when you establish relationships with your followers, they are more likely to see your social media campaigns. Nurturing such customer relationships can also help you develop a loyal community that will lead to ongoing sales over time. Here are some ways social media marketing ideas to nurture a relationship with your followers:

•       A Facebook group is a great way to build a community and brand loyalty.
•       Connecting with influencers and other entrepreneurs in your niche
•       Share your followers’ content on your social channels (and tag them)
•       Use the built-in interactive tools in every social media platform
•       Pay attention to trends in social media and create appropriate content that resonates over time.

5. Sell your products/services with social commerce

Social media marketing for small businesses has changed in recent years to include social commerce – which is the ability to sell your products and services directly from social platforms. You can thus use these social shopping tools to easily sell your products.

6. Keep changing formats

Make sure you mix up your social post formats from time to time. If you usually post images, try a GIF. If you regularly post videos, try an infographic. And also use all the formats that are available within each social media platform, like Reels, Stories, or Live videos. This will also help you learn which formats work best for different content types for your social media marketing business. But while sharing on social media, make sure that all your posts are inclusive and accessible. And ensure that your target audience is completely represented in the posts you share.

7.  Give importance to quality over quantity

It is more important to develop quality content on a couple of premium channels than to have an active presence on every channel. Also, make sure that all your posts offer some value to the audience. As we had mentioned above, social media marketing for local businesses is all about building relationships. Be honest, be human, and post great content.

8.  Use the right tools

Take advantage of the tools that will simplify and automate most of your work for you. Here are some ways to enhance your social media strategy for small businesses:

•  Use auto tools that will help you build eye-catching images for your social media posts.
•  Online social media management tools will help you centralize all your messages and mentions in one dashboard.
•  Using an aggregate platform to gather all your analytics data in one place can help you get a better picture of your social media efforts.
• Use automated scheduling tools to create a social content calendar and free up more time for engagement.

9. Keep tracking and refining your performance

As you implement your social media strategy, it is important to keep track of what works and what does not for your brand. You can then use this data to refine your efforts and consequently improve the results. The analytics tools mentioned above enables affordable social media marketing for small businesses and also help you easily keep track of your social campaigns.

Once you understand how your strategy is working, you can start looking for ways to improve it. Make sure you invest in ways to expand your efforts and reach a bigger audience.

Wrapping Up

Now that you know how you can use social media marketing for local businesses to attain your business objectives, you can start planning what content to post to deliver a great customer experience and build relationships with your audience. It is important to remember that you should always be adapting to the latest information and social media trends. Every new insight that you gather about your audience should be constantly reforming your tactics and pushing your efforts towards bigger success.

For some businesses, success on social media takes several months – even years. But if you are committed to keep learning from your experiences and applying those insights to your future campaigns, you will be able to easily conquer the social media marketing business.

To learn more about how Get My Sites can help with your social media strategy, give us a shout here!