Marketing has been the key to success for businesses for a millennium—it's existed in some form since antiquity, however, what we recognize as modern marketing first evolved following the Industrial Revolution. With the advent of the internet, the way businesses large and small market themselves and their goods has changed drastically. And the rise of social media has only changed it more.
First, to understand how to best market your small business on social media, we have to understand what exactly is social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing—What is It?
It’s important to understand the basics of social media marketing, which includes knowing what exactly social media marketing is. The simplest definition is that social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to promote and advertise a product or service. Social media marketing is also known as digital marketing. As you can tell from the name, this is a form of marketing that takes place entirely online. With the world becoming increasingly internet-reliant, it is important to utilize social media to market your business.
Why Should You Use Social Media?
It’s easy to see why you should market your business on social media when you know the statistics. The average internet user has approximately five social media accounts. What’s more, there are over 4.48 billion active social media users. That means there are a lot of opportunities to reach potential customers if you are strategic with your digital marketing.
Benefits of social media marketing for small businesses include:
- Increase brand awareness and discovery
- Reach your target audience more easily
- Higher sales and conversion rates
- The chance to engage with your audience
- Better, more direct customer service
If you are ready to learn how to use social media for your small business, read on.
How to Market on Social Media
Digital marketing is a large, expansive field that takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what specifically will work best for your small business. Here are some good starting tips to help you learn.
Identify your audience
It is crucial to know your target audience so you do not waste time marketing on a platform that will not produce results. Is your audience younger, like Gen-Z, or are you targeting an older crowd like Gen-X or Baby Boomers? Knowing which demographic you want to home in on with your digital marketing can help you devote your resources in the right areas; for example, using TikTok is better if your selling is geared toward younger people, while Facebook is more for an older demographic.
Create a content calendar
Know what you want to post ahead of time by creating a content calendar that keeps track of what to post, where to post it, and when. It is helpful to sit down at the end of each month and plan your content for the next month, so you are not scrambling to post the day of without any ideas!
Post at the best time
Knowing when to post is half the game. You could have the perfect content to promote your small business, but if you post it at the wrong time, it won’t be seen. Thankfully, there are ways to know when you should post your content. Each social media platform has different optimal times for posting, so keep that in mind as you make your content calendar.
Use analytics to know what’s working (and what isn’t)
There are a variety of free and paid analytics tools available for social media marketing. Utilizing these is important—it shows you the numerical data of your posts, what’s working and what isn’t. This allows you to make changes based on what is popular with users. You may find some surprising results, like different best times to post a photo versus a video.
Paid analytics tools can provide more value depending on your goals. Idea Financial can help finance these digital marketing goals with our business term loans and revolving line of credit.
Use hashtags
Hashtags are the backbone of searching on social media. It’s how people find posts that are relevant to their interests. You want to use relevant hashtags and not load up on unrelated tags—that can be annoying for people and considered spam.
Stay current on trends
Trends are getting shorter and shorter thanks to social media. It is important to stay current on trends and use them to promote your brand. For example, there are applications that can show you the trending hashtags and sounds on TikTok. You can research those and base your content around them to maximize your views on your posts. But be careful—using old and outdated trends can be off-putting, especially to younger social media users.
Utilize selling products directly on social media
Another way to market your small business on social media is to list your products on the platforms themselves. For example, Instagram allows users to purchase products directly from stores right on the app. Having your products so easily available for purchase right on social media platforms opens the doors for selling more products.
Hire the right people
If you find all of this too overwhelming and need help, consider hiring a specialist or two to manage your social media accounts. Hiring early is smart as they can create growth sooner. You do not have to hire a full-time employee for this—part-time freelancers are popular options for people looking for help growing their small business’s presence online. A specialist can help create a social media strategy for your small business.
How Idea Financial Can Help
Digital marketing might seem overwhelming and expensive, but it is incredibly worth it. Using a business term loan lender like Idea Financial can help you finance your small business’s goals for marketing on social media, whether it’s by helping pay for a social media specialist or analytics tools. Idea Financial offers a revolving business line of credit and business term loans for small businesses. With a speedy application, you can receive a decision in as little as one day. Get fast access to capital to finance your small business.
