How Social Do You Want To Be?
As a small business owner, do you ever struggle to find the time to post or interact with your customers on social media? With the many platforms available these days, structuring your message, finding the right photo and adding the right hashtags can be time consuming. And, although you may not feel like a professional marketer, it’s important to remember you are the ideal candidate for your brand – you know your business inside out. But, how do you “social” with limited time in your day-to-day schedule.
To simplify it - pick a platform you are good at and do it well.
All platforms require different communication tools, so you may find yourself trying to fit your brand into a box that just doesn’t work – don’t. When you use the same format, it will show up in your messaging with incorrect tags, weird spacing and awkward photo sizes. So, think about the social media platform you do best and go for it. Below are some of our favorite platforms and how we think they should be utilized…
Your go-to social media platform. Not only is Facebook the perfect place to post about your upcoming events or a sale one can’t miss, it is also a great place to share and talk about those you admire – creating a network of neighbors just like you. It also allows for your followers to write reviews about the awesome things you are doing and selling. If you would like to promote your brand in this way – focus on Facebook. We love Facebook for promoting our blog and our story. A Facebook account we admire for its promotion of community + brand - Pop Fizz.
Visual, creative and artsy. Selling jewelry? Offering prints of your original painting? Or selling a delish dessert? Use Instagram. It is a place to promote the visual items your brand offers – so don’t be shy, get visual. We also love this platform for its utilization of hashtags. Now you can follow specific hashtags on Instagram – which means so are your future followers. Utilize the hashtags that are specific and popular to your brand. Hastags we follow include: #marketing #graphicdesign and #socialmedia. Is your brand all about imagery? Focus on Instagram. We love Instagram for promoting the visual pieces of our brand - its colors and our logo. An Instagram account we admire for its marketing + imagery - Retail Therapy.
A great source for news, joining a conversation or finding the right article to share. If your business is picked up for a news story or promoted in a newspaper article – this is the perfect place to share it. Although we think Twitter is a fun social platform, we like to focus on the most popular mediums with imagery. Tweet ya later! A Twitter account we admire for its great source of news - VianteNM.
And, yes, videos are a must - check back later for our thoughts on short videos vs. gifs, and how they should be integrated within your social media strategy.
Whatever you decide, remember social media is free. Make sure your brand is promoted correctly, accurately and clearly. But, always be marketing – marketing for the brand you love.