Social media marketing is an area small businesses sometimes ignore, whether because of the time and effort involved or simply a misunderstanding of the benefits. Either way, it can be a costly misstep.
Social Media Is About Connecting with People
People are driven by people. Social media lets any business harness the power of the organic follower, who is far more useful and loyal than a bought one. A group of organic followers can become a community. A group of bought followers will only ever be a group of bought followers.
People are motivated by what interests them. Those with no real engagement with your products or services are unlikely to buy anything from you or recommend you to their friends.
A community, on the other hand, builds genuine interest around your business and is far more likely to opt into offers or buy from you.
You Have to Give Before You Get
To get the most from social media, you need content that's "share-worthy." Creating accounts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Pinterest is an important first step, but if you can't feed them with shareable content, your business just looks boring.
Good, consistent content builds your following and eventually gets shared. Strong posts get reshared, and helpful blog posts earn links that bring more people to your site. The further your content travels, the more interest it generates, and the greater your social return on investment.
Here are some quick tips to improve your social media presence:
- Visual power: Use images and video to convey your message wherever you can. People absorb them faster. If your product photographs well, visual-first platforms are perfect for you: Pinterest now has more than 500 million monthly users and Instagram over 2 billion. And short-form video, on Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, is now the most engaging format of all.
- Tell a story: Consumers care about you and your business, not your statistics. Share experiences, write in the first person, and connect. Save the data for your investors. Marketers need to be master storytellers, and the best even move from storytelling to "story-doing," a term coined by Ty Montague.
- Lead your field: People trust businesses whose leaders are visible and interacting on social media. It's still relatively rare, but the companies that do it tend to see real results, so don't hide your founders and executives.
- Look the part: First impressions are powerful, so put care into your profile photos, cover images, and bio. A clean, friendly, professional presentation makes people far more likely to trust and follow you.
At the end of the day, social media is about building relationships, and when you do that well and give it the time it deserves, it ultimately boosts your sales.
Want help turning social media into real sales? Get in touch with our team.
This is part of our guide to marketing your small business online.
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