Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Business: Ultimate Guide

You are producing quality products, you have a dynamic team in your business, you are putting a decent budget on social media marketing for small businesses to get decent results, but at the end of the day, you are stuck! Why is this happening?

Because in the name of so-called marketing, you are actually wasting money, not spending or investing!

Marketing is not bad at all. But doing marketing in the wrong way will take you down slowly but surely. Money will bring money, but only when you will know the appropriate things to do. There is no doubt that - social media channels are great sources of traffic.

Planning to engage them in your products or services and finally convert them into leads is okay. But you have to keep in mind, the whole process is not that easy. And that's why you are still reading this introduction of this in-depth discussion.

Well! Today let me show you some super major facts regarding why you are still stuck,

• Why can't small businessmen maximize their profit?
• Why is your ROI (Return on Investment) graph drastically falling?
• And why your marketing budget for social media is just going into the gutter?
• And most importantly - how to get rid of all of it, etc.

And hopefully, you'll get the ultimate guidance regarding the right social media strategy for small businesses that eventually will take you out of the rabbit hole!

A strategy called social media marketing makes use of social media websites and platforms to advertise goods and services. It ranks among the most popular marketing strategies, along with SEO and internet advertising.

According to STATISTA regarding The following advantages of social media marketing for businesses (survey as of January 2021):

                                          Source: Statista

These statistics, collected from a poll of 4,394 marketers globally, show the depth of social media marketing.

The truth is - opening a business and generating social media marketing ideas for small businesses is easy. But in the competition of slow and steady races, it's not that easy to attain massive success and keep going on.

Advertising on social media channels can work as your helping hand to reach a mass audience, in this case, and let them know about your business.

But the following sins are constantly being made by so many small business owners that are solely responsible for sinking your boat in the middle of the ocean!

Have a look at the following lines carefully to know those blatant marketing strategies that you are constantly applying.

1. Follower Buying Tendency

Always keep this word in mind - the followers are just your followers, not buyers! You'll find many small business owners who spend a decent amount of money every day to get followers (which can be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on).

And they get an increased number of followers also. But at the end of the day, the increased number of followers can't increase their sales.

Cause, when you run a paid campaign on social media, the following things happen in most cases,

• The social media robot just shows the ad to some random people who are not your targeted audience at all.
• It has been claimed by multiple marketers, some social media will bring you BOT followers, not actual humans! Even in a statistic report by Statista, it has been stated that about 16% of Facebook accounts are fake!
• These bot followers are programmed to unfollow your page automatically after a certain number of days. And that is a complete waste of money and time.

So, are you already in the trap? Then how can you get rid of it?

2. Wrong Audience Targeting

Suppose you have a car business that is small. Now, you want to expand your business to a mass audience. To make it happen, as a small business owner, you are determined to perform social media marketing for small businesses to get quick results.

You have put a budget for marketing and have run your ad campaign targeting those who have no sufficient financial stability. So, what will happen at the end of the day?

They'll see your advertisement, click the thumbs-up button, and then will put a comment "When I'll be rich, I'll buy this car. But not today!".

And that's how your marketing budget is going into the gutter!

Actually, the following things happen when you do wrong audience targeting after running your paid advertisements.

• Your actual customers will not be able to know about your business
• Your branding will not be that fruitful, which can help you in thriving your business
• You'll have no worthy data collections of worthy visitors that can be used for performing any data-driven analysis for generating leads

3. Tendency to Dominate All the Social Media Channels

It's okay to market your business on social media. But there's a saying - If you run after two hares, you'll catch neither! The same thing happens when you try to dominate all the social media channels to grab traffic greedily.

But the fact is, for thriving your business, it's not necessary to be active on all the popular social media channels. Instead, you should choose a particular social media and give your full attention to where your potential customers are active. And then your task is to convert them into leads by using your improvised marketing strategy.

And when you will give your full focus on your appropriate social media for small businesses, the results that you'll receive won't disappoint you.

Learn: Social Media Marketing for Startups

4. Setting Unrealistic Expectations

Setting goals for thriving your business is always appreciated. But when it becomes unrealistic and starts to convert you into a daydreamer, it will surely make you experience some scary nightmare in the near future! Why? Because the effect will not only make you depressed but also your entire business will suffer.

For instance, we can consider the situation of COVID-19 which suddenly turned into a serious outbreak in 2020. When the virus was being spread rapidly, and slowly all the governments were declaring lockdown for their countries; at that very moment, some people chose social media to sell hand sanitizer.

And millions of people around the globe made an impressive amount of money by selling this liquid.

Now it's not 2020. Everyone is getting vaccinated and the demand for hand sanitizer is not that high compared to 2020.

If today you plan to make millions of dollars by selling hand sanitizer with the same strategy, you are clearly staying in a fool's paradise! And at the end of the day what will happen - you will have a lot of hand sanitizers in your inventory unsold. And this scene is scary and sad at the same time!

Unrealistic goal setting not only happens when you select any wrong product at the wrong time for selling. Even the following things are the symptoms that you'll notice if your business goal is near daydreaming.

• When you expect massive outcomes within a short period of time
• Giving up tendency after experiencing a little failure
• The daydreaming tendency in making viral social media and getting massive success overnight
• Overrating your business potentiality

5. Self Bragging Tendency

Today after waking up in the morning, before leaving your bed, when you picked up your phone and started scrolling social media newsfeed, you must have seen many paid advertisements that caught your attention.

And you might have also noticed, all of these are talking about their products and claiming these products as "The Best!" in the market.

Now I want to ask you - how many products of these have you decided to purchase?

Exactly! So, if you are in the same rat race, then how do you expect that your customer will buy your product from you? Why not from others?

That's why self-bragging is one of the biggest sins that you probably are making continuously. Of course, you have the right to promote your product, but this is not the right way at all!

6. Underestimating The Agencies

You will find many agencies around the place where you live, who are dedicated to growing your business with proper marketing strategies.

The company is yours, the product or service is yours, and their responsibility is to ensure maximizing your sales by doing proper marketing strategy according to the product/service that you are providing. And they will charge an amount in return.

The problem is - most people think blindly - "Agencies are scam! They just grab high amounts from the businessmen in the name of so-called marketing that brings no results!"

I know scam agencies exist. But you will find many agencies also have dynamic teams with great professionals. You must have wasted a lot of money on Facebook or Instagram ads with no results.

Cause you are not a professional in this field at all. And that's why you're still reading this discussion to learn something new!

But if you had met with a true professional who (it can be a person or agency!) holds substantial knowledge in social media marketing, your business would have been in a comparatively better position than today.

Learn More: Social Media Marketing for Dentists

Not at all! As I said earlier, social media platforms are always a worthy source of traffic for growing your business. You just have to know the appropriate way to reach and engage them with your business and learn how to convert them into leads with your diversified marketing strategy.

To return your faith in social media marketing for small businesses and boost your confidence in it, I can share some interesting numbers. And I want your eyeballs to turn on the following words!

• According to eMarketer, 88% of small business owners use social media marketing strategies for customer acquisition.
• In a report of October 2021, it has been stated, about 4.55 billion people are active on social media (Source - Hubspot)
• According to the same source - 83% of marketers believe that quality content can make more impressive results in business than quantity.
• In 2020, almost every day, around 1.3 million new users joined social media platforms. And the number is increasing exponentially (Source - Hootsuite)
• According to TechCrunch, the Facebook story feature gets near about 500 million views every day!

I can share more stats, but now I want to stop here! Cause I think these facts with stats will be enough for you to return your reliance on the statement that -  social media marketing is not dead at all! Instead, gradually the industry is getting bigger at a surprising rate!

Now it's your job to know how to use these powerful platforms!

As I mentioned earlier, not all social media platforms are important for your business development. Instead, you have to find the right social media where most potential customers are active.

So before you start rushing, make sure that you have read the following guidelines that will help you to get a crystal clear understanding regarding what particular social media is appropriate considering your business type and product/service.

Remember! The following lines you have to consider as general guidance. So after finishing the guidelines, I suggest you use your common sense as well to pick the appropriate one for you. It's important!

So, without further ado, let's get these social media marketing tips for small businesses.

Consider The Audience Type

Before choosing any particular social media channel, first, do some research on that to figure out what type of visitors are most active over there. And this part is extremely important!

For instance - if your business provides B2B services, Linked In can be an excellent source for you to get your targeted angel guests for your business! And it's an open secret that Linked In is the platform where all the real professionals meet together virtually, and there is no border between them.

But if you choose Facebook instead, that will be a comparatively bad choice for you as your product or service is made for business persons.

Figure Out the Main Traffic Source

Figuring out the main traffic source of any particular social media is important, especially when you plan to perform social media marketing for small businesses. Why? Let me explain!

Suppose, for expanding your business, you want to grab market share in India. And your product supply chain is ready for that as well. But now you need to make awareness among the Indian people, who don't know about your product. So, what should you do now?

The answer is - You have to find out that particular social media for marketing where Indian people are mostly active!

And considering your case, the name of the platform should be Facebook! Because Facebook is the platform where nearly 350 million Indian people are active, which is the highest in the world!

Content-Type

Depending on your business type and your audience type, finding the right social media is extremely necessary. Let me explain with a simple example.

It's an open reality that human attention span is getting reduced gradually. According to multiple reports, teenagers are not big fans of consuming written content. They want visual representation.

On the other hand, a significant portion of them doesn't like longer videos. Instead, they prefer enjoying short videos.

And age is not the only factor in this regard. Depending on some other factors like religion, geography, the situation of society, etc a customer's habit of content consumption may differ!

Once you have identified your customer group, choosing the right social media is an easy game! Suppose you want to promote a perfume among teenage people. In that case, Instagram and TikTok can be the perfect choice for you as these are extremely popular for sharing photos and short video content respectively.

Learn More: Social Media Marketing for Fashion Brands

Identify the Tones of Different Social Media Platforms

As you will find diversity in social media platforms, you will experience different types of people. And, as you find different types of people on various social media platforms, your marketing tone should be different as well!

Here I want to mention the 3C formula that will help you to find the appropriate tone that you should apply to your audience. And here the 3C stands for -

• Culture
• Community
• Conversion

Depending on these three things and your business goal - you have to note down the list of objectives that will allow you to create your brand voice. And whenever you build your brand voice, you can easily create your content for any particular social media.

Introducing! The Ultimate Guide for Social Media Marketing!

Well! Now you already know the mistakes you are constantly making, you know the substantial potentiality of social media, and you know how to choose an appropriate social media for developing your business.

After that, this is high time to know about the social media marketing strategy for small businesses.

In the discussion below, you'll be introduced to the 8 unique steps that you should follow.

And I want to mention here with great confidence - these 8 unique steps will not only make massive sales in a short span of time. Instead, these steps will reconstruct your whole business, and that will bring stability to your business as well!

Follow the 1 Formula Rule!

I know in your business you have multiple products to offer. If your business is very small, I mean, if it's just passing the start-up period, please go for one product and do whatever you need to make it the ultimate tram card for growing up!

Because, to build your customer network, you have to sell your product. And without in-depth knowledge regarding your product, you can never figure out how to make your customer buy it!

And it's nearly impossible to be a master in the short span of time on all kinds of products you're offering. It needs time!

Do a Deep Research on Your Product

You've now selected your product. Now your job is to gain substantial knowledge regarding the product. Because completing this task will allow you to take the next step.

Especially for making content that will engage your customers, you have to understand the products you are willing to sell.

To make the process easier, ask the following questions to yourself regarding the product and find the answers.

• Targeting what particular problem the product was made to solve?
• What values can the product offer? Do you have any prepared list?
• What is the production cost of your product, and what's the selling price?
• What about your profit margin?
• After subtracting your production cost, opportunity cost, advertising cost, etc., do you believe that you can make sufficient profit for yourself?
• If any random dissatisfied customer raises a complaint regarding your product, is your knowledge regarding the product enough for giving your customer a satisfying reply?

This is not the end! Do some brainstorming to dig out more questions and get your answers ready!

Learn More: Social Media Marketing for Restaurants

Feel The Customer's Pain

Business is not only sourcing some products and starting to sell blindly as much as possible! Instead, every business person should have a problem-solving attitude!

Let me explain! You are surely reading this discussion from your laptop, desktop, tablet device, or smartphone. If the device you are holding in your hand was not invented, could you start reading it? Not at all! And here is the pain!

Then who solved your problem? The device manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, etc., took the initiative to manufacture these products to solve your problem. That's how a business grows!

Like, considering your product and the value that the product can provide, you have to figure out what particular customer pain it can eliminate. To target the pain, you have to initiate further marketing processes.

Make Content for Your Targeted Audience

Through the process that I have mentioned above, you have confirmed the following things -

• You have selected your product
• You have substantial knowledge regarding the product
• You know the customer's pain/need

Now using this information, you have to make content targeting the needs of your customer. For making quality content that can engage your audience, you can follow the following techniques.

• Step 1: Note down what value your product can offer.
• Step 2: Find out the problems that your customer is facing that your product can solve with its value
• Step 3: Now start making your content focusing on the problem of your customer that he is facing. Video content is best in this case. (Never talk about your product in your content at this stage!)
• Step 4: Try to cover how to get rid of this problem, why this is happening to him, and all other related issues in the content.
• Step 5: Show your product that is worthy enough to be the ultimate solution that can eliminate your customer's pain/need!

Create Customer Database

When your product starts to get sold, you should turn your attention to creating your customer database, especially if you know how to use the marketing-related tools of that particular social media platform you are using for marketing purposes regularly.

You will get the following benefits if you create a worthy database. Have a look!

• It will help you to make precise marketing plans for future
• You can figure out how many people are interested in your product and how many have ignored you
• For community building, a precise customer database is a goldmine!
• For making your returning customer base, creating a customer database is the ultimate key!

Segment Your Customer Type

Suppose you have run an advertising campaign on social media. Some people will ask about your product using the inbox and the comment section. Some of these will buy immediately, and the rest of the people will just ignore you!

Considering the buying tendency, we can prepare three segments here.

• Hot Customers: The people who buy your product immediately
• Warm Customers: The people who ask about your product but don't buy anything immediately
• Cold Customers: The people who show no interest in purchasing your product primarily

Depending on your customer type to maximize your sales, preparing these segments is one of the most important things.

Increase Returning Customer

Coca Cola is the company that first initiated its journey in 1886. That means the company is almost 135 years old! Let's think about one interesting thing - if the mango people would buy Coca Cola only once in their entire life, Coca Cola would never be able to dominate the whole beverage industry for more than a century!

Here comes the power of returning customers, who will contribute to your business to grow by buying your products repeatedly like a Coca Cola bottle!

And you can make this happen only when you can build a satisfied customer network. And to make it happen, you have to work to improve your product quality as well.

Create a Customer Network/Community

The relationship between your business and your customer is not only until he buys a product or service from you.

If you dedicate a platform for them where they can interact with each other and express their experience regarding their product, it will be one of the most powerful tools that will allow you to know the customer feedback.

After all, you will get the following benefits if you build a thriving community for your consumers/customers.

• A strong consumer base
• Worthy source for making your returning customer
• It will act as a great platform where you can promote your product free of cost
• Great source of receiving customer feedback regarding your product that will help you to improve product quality
• A good community always holds substantial potential that you can use to monetize, considering your convenience

So, When Will You Need a Social Media Marketing Agency for Small Businesses?

After getting the ultimate guidance, it's very natural that you will ask this question! Don't worry! I'll suggest you follow the guidelines below before handing over your valuable money to any particular agency for social media promotion.

• Lack of Knowledge of Using Tools: This discussion has covered the guidance regarding social media marketing, not using social media tools. If you don't have enough knowledge of operating the tools, don't do this task yourself. Instead, hire a professional agency with substantial expertise in providing social media marketing services for small businesses.
• Lack of Time: Opening a business is easy, but keep going and making it bigger is not that easy. During the restless journey, you may have to be busy with different projects to handle. So, it's clearly impossible to brainstorm for social media marketing and apply it at this position. In that case, a professional agency can be your helping hand.
• Risk Minimization: A good and professional digital marketing agency holds substantial expertise and knowledge regarding social media marketing. Their dynamic team is expert enough in picking the right marketing technique that suits your business. So, the chances of getting failure in your business are comparatively low.
• Cost Saving: Believe it or not! When you plan to implement your marketing plan to grow your business, your first plan may not work! Even you can fail several times as you are not making the perfect ad copy considering your target audience or something else. That is clearly a waste of money that could be saved if you would consult with a professional social media marketing agency.

 

Well! Considering your business size and tasks that you and your team are to handle every day, if you feel you need a digital marketing agency to help you to reduce your excessive workload of social media management for small businesses, you have to choose the right digital marketing agency that is worthy enough to handle it.

Otherwise, you will just be wasting money! If you're not a big fan of being part of it, follow the following steps so that you can filter out the right one.

• Step-1: Do some research online and offline and make a precise list of the best social media marketing in your area
• Step-2: Check out their portfolio
• Step-3: Crosscheck the level of their customer satisfaction who constantly take their services
• Step-4: Try to figure out their industry reputation by visiting their Google Business Page, Social media pages like Facebook, Linked In, etc. And check out the average user rating
• Step-5: Arrange a meeting with them and ask them about some of the biggest projects that they handled
• Step-6: Visit their office and observe the company culture. You can even talk with some of their employees to know their satisfaction level of being part of that agency
• Step-7: What about their "After Sales Service"? Take a serious note - if you find any particular agency that is careless about taking care of their customer after selling their service, you should avoid that agency. So, this one is one of the major facts as well that you should consider before choosing the agency.

This is the rough process of finding out the best social media marketing for you. And if you invent some improvised technique in this regard, you can apply it as well.

Unfortunately, there isn't a simple solution. It relies on your goals, just like the majority of marketing techniques.

There are various ways to Calculate the Price of Social Media Marketing

• Quantity of networks
• Post count and unique images
• Amount of competitions
• Quantity of promoted posts
• Audit of social media activity and content
• competitor research
• Social media planning
• Optimization for social media

So! We're near the end of this discussion. But before wrapping up, as an expert in the Digital Marketing industry, I want to answer some frequently asked questions from people like you.

Have a look!

What Social Media Should a Small Business Use?

Well! I already answered this question in the discussion! If you haven't read that portion properly, I suggest you read that again. You'll find the appropriate way to find out the best social media for your small business.

But in brief, we can say the following things before choosing a particular social media.

• Consider the audience type
• The main traffic source of the social media
• The types of content that are mainly popular in the social media
• The tone of the social media

Why Does a Small Business Need Social Media?

There are several reasons we can mention. But I want to mention the key reasons here.

• Cause 1: A worthy source of huge traffic
• Cause 2: Targeting your audience in a precise way is super easy
• Cause 3: Great platform for social media branding
• Cause 4: Cost-effectiveness!
• Cause 5: Great convenience in social media management

How Can I Promote My Business on Social Media for Free?

Here I want to mention a legendary quote - "Nothing is free in this world!". In the case of social media marketing for small businesses, you either have to spend money on advertising campaigns or work super hard instead. But for getting quick results, there is no other better alternative than paid advertisements.

But still, you have the following things to do for promoting your business on social media.

• Create a social media page or group
• Post regularly on your page promoting your products
• Be connected with the relevant social media platforms
• Post on the media regularly
• Provide free value to your audience. It will significantly help you to increase organic traffic
• Build a good relationship with your customer and develop trustworthiness. It will help you to generate sales

What are the Benefits of Social Media for Business?

There are some advantages of social media marketing for small businesses that I have already mentioned. But here I'm saying some more benefits that you can get. Just go through the bullet points.

• Driving traffics to your website
• Lead generation
• Boosting your sales
• Getting viral is comparatively easy on social media
• High engagement rate

How Can VISER X Help You With Social Media Marketing for Your Business?

If you are still with my long discussion, then you already know that the website where you are reading this line right now, is actually a leading digital marketing agency that serves multiple services to their clients.

If you feel that - for thriving your business, you need some professional help, VISER X is the company that holds the substantial potential to help you out.

Because right now, VISER X is the number-one digital marketing agency in Bangladesh!

The agency has attained tremendous popularity among its customers. And on the Google Business Page, they have a 4.8 average rating out of 5!

VISER X generally offers the following digital marketing-related services.

Social media marketing service

Online reputation management service

YouTube marketing service

Branding and communication service

SEO Service

E-Commerce SEO Service

Google ads management service

And so on!

But if you need to purchase their social media marketing service for developing your small business, you can check out their cost effective packages!

First of all, thanks for your extreme patience in reading the super-long discussion of social media marketing for small businesses. But the surprising fact is, still, this discussion is not enough! I skipped some minor parts that you should know as well. For keeping the discussion as short as possible, I have been compelled to do it.

So, when you are stuck somewhere, please do some research to dig out the solution yourself. If you need help from some professionals, you can contact the VISER X support team without any cost.

After all, I believe you have a clear understanding of the ultimate guidance of social media marketing that will allow you to convert your small business into a bigger one.