What Social Media Platforms Should Your Business Be On?
Trying to figure out social media ideas for a small business can be challenging. As a business owner, it can also be tedious trying to figure out what social media platform you should be active on—you don't want to waste time on a platform that isn’t valuable for your company. Additionally, you need to ensure that you’re posting content curated for each individual platform.
However, there is no doubt that social media is one of the least expensive forms and potentially valuable forms of marketing. Now, it’s more important than ever for businesses to remain active on social media, or people may think your business doesn’t even exist!
Understanding the Importance of Social Media Ideas for a Small Business
Social media is very different from other forms of marketing and advertising. When your business is active on social media, you’re able to directly communicate with your customers.
Additionally, social media grants customers many opportunities to understand your business’ services, products, culture and mission better. In fact, approximately 55% of consumers learn about businesses and brands through social media!
Additionally, every generation is on social media, which is why it’s useful no matter what your target demographic is. Whether your business is big or small, there is a social media platform for you.
With larger brands, it helps your business feel more accessible for your customers. With small businesses, it helps reach a larger audience, while still engaging with local and loyal customers.
The Top 4 Social Media Platforms for Businesses: What They Offer & Their Demographics
Many articles will say that a certain platform is better than others.
However, it truly depends on your business and where your customer is. Here is a list of the top four social media platforms for businesses and their features.
1. Facebook
With close to 3 billion users, Facebook has an extremely very large audience, reaching all ages and types of people. Your business can create private groups on this platform, allowing more engagement with the customers. Additionally, if your business hosts a lot of events, Facebook is a great place to create event invites, where people can reply if they’re attending or not.
Facebook, in general, is the biggest and most well-known platform. This makes it great for brand awareness, especially when using Facebook Ads. Check out these big and small companies on Facebook for an idea on the different content they post: Oreo, National Geographic, M22, and Gallagher Uniform.
2. Instagram
Since it’s a more casual platform, Instagram allows your business to show off both its brand image and culture. However, it’s important to have an aesthetic or theme when it comes to your Instagram feed, to show uniformity in your brand.
This is especially important if your company appeals to a younger generation. If your target audience is a younger/middle age demographic, Instagram is a platform you should focus more time and energy on.
A helpful thing to remember about Instagram is that it's very important to post (and comment) regularly! Due to their algorithm, your engagement will decrease if your account isn't consistently active.
Remember: this platform is all about being personal and really connecting with the followers! When creating content, gather inspiration from businesses like Wildroast Coffee Co., H&M, WhatWeSaidPodcast, Recess, and BarkBox.
3. LinkedIn
As you may know, LinkedIn is the platform for business networking. This platform is less about the business to consumer (B2C) and more about business to business (B2B).
Additionally, LinkedIn is especially great when recruiting potential employees. When your business is on LinkedIn, the content should be more professional and show followers the benefits of your business.
It’s important to post about what your company offers, why other businesses would want to work with you, or why you’re a great employer. Another great running theme to post about on LinkedIn is sharing helpful tips or facts on subjects your company is proficient in. Check out these companies on LinkedIn to know what type of content is great for this platform: RED66, Meijer, ACE Imagewear, and Dick's Sporting Goods.
4. TikTok
TikTok is a fairly new platform, but it’s already changed the way other platforms operate. Since TikTok videos range from 3 seconds to 10 minutes long, your content needs to be short and sweet.
Most users tend to watch less than 50% of a single TikTok video, and also average to be between 18 and 34 years old. This platform can be a good way for your business to branch out by either making funny, informational, aesthetic, or how-to videos.
It’s important to be genuine and relatable with your content and remember: be creative! Here are some big (and small!) companies that have really succeeded on TikTok, such as: Chipotle, ryanair, Asos, Northern Uniform Services, and The Washington Post.
Define Your Social Media Goals
Social media is broad, and is a lot of information to grasp at once. We admit it—knowing what the platforms offer is overwhelming! It’s truly a whole new world that’s changing every day, which makes keeping up on trends and starting your own trends tough!
Regardless, you need to take a step back and define your goals for social media. When you know what you want to gain and accomplish from being on social media, choosing what platforms to be on and what content to create is that much easier.
Here are some questions for you to answer that’ll help define your social media goals:
- Who is our demographic?
- Who is your target audience?
- What type of content will bring more customers, clients, and/or leads?
- How do I want to engage with customers?
- Do we need to have a presence on all the main social media platforms?
- How will we convert followers into customers?
- What type of content will I need to produce to accomplish these goals?
Use Social Media Consistently
The first step to establishing social media ideas for your small business? Create content calendars. This can be as simple as a Google Doc or Excel spreadsheet.
This is where you’ll brainstorm ideas for different platforms. Don’t worry, your content CAN overlap on platforms as long as it's appropriate for that platform!
After you finalize your content themes, start creating. Start by either gathering images and creating graphics/blogs first, creating captions first, or whatever feels best.
When you create monthly content calendars, it helps consistently push out thoughtful content consistently, while also helping ideas flow!
Social Media Simply Not Your Thing? Hire a Professional Instead to Create Social Media Ideas for Your Small Business!
Brainstorming new social media content, consistently posting, and engaging with followers can be exhausting without the proper resources. It truly is a lot of work and sometimes, it's much easier and cost-effective to hire someone, or an agency, who knows the ins-and-outs of social media marketing.
Contact us today to learn how we can help grow your business’ online presence!