Social media for small businesses

Social media is for everyone, but still not everyone is utilising it for business or know how to effectively put it into practice and ensure it’s working for their business. This week I have pulled together some very simple steps to take whether your business already uses social media or thinking about taking the plunge:

Less is more

First off, don’t think you need to be on every network. It’s much better to select one or two where you know your audience are than spread yourself to thinly across numerous networks that will take up far too much time to manage. There is a surprising number of differences in each network including audience network, and style of content.

Conduct a social media audit.

An audit will provide you with an invaluable starting point, whether you are already on social media or just starting out. Your audit will need to determine your current audience, where they are and your social media presence compared with your competitors.

Plan your content

This is such a simple step but one many choose to ignore, but for me is essential. Planing your content allows you to integrate it into your overall marketing strategy and allows you to better plan your time spent on social media, which can take up a surprising amount of time.

Test, evaluate, and adjust your strategy. You should never stop working on your social media strategy. To do this you should regularly be analysing your analytics, post engagement, overall account performance, page visits and post clicks, all of which will give you an overall understanding of what’s working well and what isn’t, in order to adjust and tailor your approach. Social media is very much trial and error, what works well for one, doesn’t always work well for another.

I am currently running a number of one-day social media workshops to help small businesses and start ups with their social media. The workshops will also be inviting guest speaker Jess Soothill, successful Lifestyle blogger to share her experience on how she started her blog and uses it for business.

To find out more or book, go to: 2communicate.co.uk/trainingandworkshops/social-media-workshop-for-small-business-start-ups