How Social Media Can Make Your Small Business Stand Out

Social media is a low-cost and effective marketing tool that every business should have. It is the best way to grow an organic following, especially with the number of social media users growing every year.

According to We Are Social and Hootsuite, the number of social media users in 2018 was 3.196 billion, which means using social media for marketing is a no-brainer!

However, managing social media accounts for your business can be overwhelming, but if done right can be an effective way to communicate to your audience and get your product or service to the right people.

What Social Media Platform is Right For You?

One of the most important parts of social media marketing is understanding where your audience is and how to best communicate with them. Having every kind of social media account can be difficult to keep up with and may not be very effective.

You need to find the right social media sites for you based on where your audience will be. Here is a breakdown of what sites attract what audience. This list of course isn’t the end-all be-all of target audience but it’s a good starting point:

Facebook: Facebook has a wide audience that can accommodate almost any brand. Here you can easily share photos, videos, and links to blog posts or quick status updates. It also has a comprehensive ad manager tool for targeted ads.

Instagram: Instagram is a platform that focuses on photos and videos. This is the perfect place to visually show off your product or brand. Since Facebook also owns Instagram, you can access the same ad manager that Facebook uses for Instagram ads; a huge plus!

Twitter: Twitter is a limited-character social media platform that is the best for communicating with your audience. Many brands use Twitter to tweet updates and interact with their following. It’s always nice to interact with the real people behind a company.

Youtube: Youtube is the biggest and most popular video hosting site. Here is where you can grow an organic following with your video content.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the social media site for professionals to interact with each other. There is a lot of B2B communication and collaboration and the social aspect has gained a lot of traction in the past few years. Similar to Facebook, you or your brand can post status updates, picture and video to a feed that your connections can see and engage with.

Create Engaging Content

Social media is a powerful tool that can help you build a loyal following and establish your business online. It's an effective tool to use to promote virtually every aspect of your small business.

Establish Your Brand - 60% of people on Instagram say they discover new products on the platform. You need to establish yourself and what you can offer your customers. This is the main reason why companies use social media. This can be done by posting your products, visuals of your services, storefront, employees, customers, etc.

Become a Thought-Leader - Being an expert in your field is the best way to build customer trust. Posting content that shows you are a leader in your field removes the risk of the buying process since you’ve established you know what you’re doing. This can be done by posting resources, infographics, customer testimonials, your companies results, special appearances, etc.

Communicate with Your Audience - Social media has made it very easy for companies to communicate with their audience. Are you hosting or attending an event/expo? Is there a new sale or initiative you’re pushing? Or on the other end, has your company gone through some controversy or rumors that need to be cleared up? No matter what it is, this can all be communicated through social media.

Make Your Brand Stand Out

Now to the hard part- many other brands know how valuable social media is and are always trying to capitalize on it. So how do you stand out?

The best way to stand out is to make your content more engaging than the rest. Here are a few ways to do that:

Consistency: Keep your brand voice and style consistent with all your posts.

Engage with your Audience: Make sure you are replying to comments and encouraging community by asking questions and providing value.

Be Different: When somebody is scrolling through their feed, make sure that your content catches their attention right away. One of the best ways to do this is by using video.

At The Bear’s Den Entertainment, we offer affordable and engaging social media packages to make sure your content stands out. Check out this video for more information and click the link below to get started.