It's no secret that the world is completely hooked on social media. We spend so much time glued to our phones, tablets, computers, whatever device it may be, there's a strong chance it's connected to at least one social media platform. Yet so many small businesses don't seem to put the time and the effort into managing their platforms. Considering it's one of the main ways that you could connect with your customers and potential customers, we fail to see why more businesses are not putting in the effort to manage their social media pages daily. So, if you keep on reading, we'll go into more detail about the importance of social media, and how your business can make an impact.
By Team Savant
Image: Hello I'm Nik 🎞
When you look at bigger brands, they are plastered all over social media and they're doing it in such a way that they're connecting with customers, whether it be dealing with issues that have arisen, or whether it's posting content that they know will attract attention. Once you gain that attention through social media you're away. It's not only good for connecting with customers and sharing your brand, it's a great way of showcasing to competitors what your business is all about.
Posting Valuable Content
This is the first thing that you need to think about after setting up your social media pages, if you haven't already done so. Social media content is so hard to get right for a business because that one post can either have the potential to attract a ton of attention, or it'll show your business in a poor light. One way you can ensure this doesn't happen is to focus on the graphics and the photos that you're taking. It's so clear to see the difference between a small business that isn't focusing on this, and a bigger brand who has the money and the time to invest. This guide will give you some expert advice on taking the right photo. It's like any photo you're taking for your website, you need it the be professional in order to make a good impression. You also need to make sure the content is valuable to the customer. It has to impact them in a positive way and reach out to their needs. That all depends on your target audience and how you want to approach interacting with them.
Managing The Pages
Your social media pages are going to take some managing, there's no two ways about it. If you're posting something once a week and it's the same sort of sales pitch that you always do, it's only going to give a bad impression for your business. But, if you're posting daily content, even if that content be sharing a GIF and saying 'Happy Monday' or something of the sorts, you're still posting real time content that interacts with your customers. They're not always going to want to see a new product, or a photo of an employee, sometimes it's good to keep your social media content light and funny. It might be wise to share the task of running the social media pages between the people you have working for you. It's a great way of allowing different ideas to be brought to the table, and some of your employees might know more about social media than you do.
How Each Platform Benefits Your Business
Image: Thought Catalog
The one mistake a business will make is focusing all on one platform, when in fact all of the different social media platforms are good for their own reasons. Instagram is great for connecting with, well pretty much everyone. It's the main social media platform. It's so easy to create good content for this as long as you're taking professional pictures, which you can refer back to the link in the first section to do so. It's important to post at the right time as well, prime time is usually between 17:30-22:00. It's between these times that people are glued to their phones and scrolling. Twitter is also a good platform but we know it's not as popular as Facebook. Facebook is great as it has so many features for a business page. You can pay to boost posts so that it reaches more people, and it's generally easier to connect with a wider age range of people. Some of the older generation have not bothered being introduced to Instagram.
There are also some things to be wary of. You need to make sure you're posting real content that isn't copied without permission from other places, and you need to be careful of anyone trying to hack into your profiles. Always be wary of the content you keep on your profiles.