A guide to social media for small businesses

With an estimated 5.6 billion active users across platforms worldwide, social media offers an accessible and cost-effective way for small businesses to reach new audiences, foster customer loyalty, and drive sales. To benefit from the full potential of social media, it is essential that you learn how to use social media for business and what is available to help you.

In our in-depth guide below, we explore the benefits of social media and the key steps, tips, and tools to use social media effectively as a small business.

Benefits of using social media for business

Utilising social media for business can offer a range of top-line business benefits, including:

• Increase brand awareness:  Social media allows businesses to reach a new audience, and in turn build brand awareness, increase their visibility, and benefit from the opportunity to grow a loyal customer base.
• Improve customer service: Using social media enables professionals to communicate directly with their audience in real-time, and work on fostering real connections, through the ability to respond to any comments or concerns promptly. 
• Up-to-date analytics: Social media analytics provide businesses with insights into customer behaviour and preferences. This data can help to optimise marketing campaigns, and can highlight any marketing strategies which may need reassessing.
• Additional marketing capabilities: Many social media platforms offer additional marketing tools, such as paid advertising, partnerships, or campaigns, allowing businesses to better target specific demographics and drive business growth.
• Effective content distribution: A social media presence gives businesses an additional avenue for sharing content with their customers. For example, blogs, videos, product releases, or business updates can be shared across social platforms.

How to use social media for business

1. Choose a platform

Each social media platform attracts a different type of audience and supports different types of content, so it is essential that your chosen platforms align with your audience and business goals. It is important to research and understand which networks attract your target audience, for example, Instagram and Facebook are ideal for sharing visual content and reaching a broad consumer base, while LinkedIn is designed for B2B networking and professional services. Alternatively, TikTok and Snapchat appeal to younger demographics and are excellent for creative, short-form videos.

2. Set goals

Determine what goals you would like your business to achieve from using social media, such as increasing brand awareness, driving more traffic to your website, generating leads, or improving customer service. Alongside traditional marketing objectives, you can set social media specific goals for growing your brand, which Hootsuite share could focus on KPIs such as likes, shares, comments, or mentions. Setting clear objectives for your use of social media for business will help to influence your strategies and content plans. Visit our dedicated guide to discover more advice about setting goals for your small business.

3. Create a strategy

A social media strategy should specify the platforms you are going to utilise, the topics your company is able to address, the types of content you will share, and the audiences you want to target on each platform. If you have any employees or business partners, decide who will be responsible for managing your social media, and outline your brand voice for each platform, whether it will be on the friendly or professional side, or your own unique tone. The strategy stage is also the ideal time to write out a social media policy for your business, and outline how you advise handling customer interactions on social media. 

4. Build out a content plan

Consider your audience’s interests and pain points, and create a content plan to address them. LinkedIn advises how your content plan should decide the key themes you would like your business to highlight on social media, and how much of that content will be unique or curated. A content plan will help you to organise your ideas, make sure your content is cohesive, and ensure you are posting relevant material. Plan a mix of posts to keep your content dynamic and engaging, such as educational tips, promotional offers, or interactive polls. 

5. Set up a content calendar

When building your content calendar, incorporate seasonal events, annual holidays, and any company-specific dates, such as product launches or milestones, that may interest your audience and are relevant to your business. Your content calendar should include the post date, time, platform, content type, caption, image or video, and any important links. Social media management tools, listed further down in this article, are available to schedule your posts ahead of time, helping you maintain consistent posting and manage your workflow.

6. Engage with your audience

Interacting with your audience is essential for building brand trust and customer relationships. Engage by responding to comments, messages, and reviews where feasible, and participate in conversations which are relevant to your audience. You can also actively engage with your followers by running polls, for example on your Instagram stories, or by asking open-ended questions in your captions to help understand what pain points your audience may have and how you can address them. HubSpot shares how customers are more likely to continue to support businesses that make them feel valued.

7. Track performance

Monitor your social media performance regularly to assess if you are on track to meet your goals and if your social media efforts are delivering results. Each social media platform will provide analytical tools to assess your content; however, you can also use external tools, some of which are mentioned below in social media tools for small businesses. Analyse different formats of content to see what is working and what may need adjusting, for example, if video content is consistently performing well, then you may consider adding more video ideas into your content plan. If you are not meeting your targets, revisit your content plan to assess if you need to try any new tactics.

10 tips for using social media for business

To maximise the benefits of social media, it is important to learn practical tips to help you use any platform effectively for your business:

1. Be authentic: Show the human side of your business through behind-the-scenes content, employee stories, and speaking in a tone that feels natural to your business. Concentrate on being open about your journey, challenges, and successes, as authenticity can help you to build trust with your audience.
2. Post consistently: Establish a regular posting schedule to keep your brand at the forefront of your audiences’ mind. Use scheduling tools to plan posts in advance to maintain a constant presence. Regular posts and updates can also help boost your visibility in social media algorithms.
3. Use visuals: Visual content is more likely to be remembered than text alone. Incorporate high-quality photos, videos, and graphics to catch users’ attention and make your posts more shareable, and showcase your product through visual content that reflects your brand’s style. 
4. Leverage hashtags: Research and use relevant hashtags to improve the discoverability of your posts to help you reach both broad and targeted audiences. Create a unique branded hashtag for your business to encourage user-generated content and community engagement.
5. Run promotions and contests: Engage your audience and attract new followers by hosting giveaways, competitions, or exclusive discounts. Keep participation simple, such as liking, sharing or tagging friends, to encourage engagement. Always ensure to clearly communicate the rules, prizes, and deadlines.
6. Stay informed: Keep up with the latest trends, platform updates, and best practices in social media marketing. Subscribe to industry newsletters, follow thought leaders, and participate in relevant online groups or webinars, as keeping up to date will help you to adapt your strategy and keep your content fresh.
7. Keep people entertained: Create content that is entertaining as well as informing, as entertaining posts are more likely to be shared and increase your reach organically. Be prepared to experiment with different types of content – variety keeps your audience interested and, in turn, continuing to follow you.
8. Interact with your audience: Respond promptly and carefully to comments, messages, and mentions to show that you value your followers’ engagement. Engaging in conversations can help to build a loyal online community and encourage further interaction.
9. Connect with other businesses: Analysing the social media behaviour of similar businesses can help to power your strategy. Collaborating with other businesses can expand your reach and tap into new audiences, as well as actively engaging with other businesses to foster goodwill and open the door to future partnerships.
10. Continue learning: It is essential to invest time into ongoing learning as social media is constantly evolving. You can attend workshops and register for online courses to keep up to date with any advancements. Regularly analysing your performance metrics is also a good way to continue learning about what is working and where your social media skills can improve.

10 social media tools for small businesses

Whether you have established your social media presence, or are looking to start up some new profiles, there are a range of social media marketing tools for businesses. Find tools which vary in features and pricing, depending on the size of your business and what you require, here:

• Hootsuite: Hootsuite allows users to analyse social media performance, schedule posts and create content, respond to messages and comments, and track mentions, keywords and trends, with your very own AI assistant. The social media management platform offers a 30-day free trial, with plans starting from £89/month.
• SproutSocial: SproutSocial can maximise your social ROI by allowing you to plan and schedule content, engage with customers, analyse your performance, and discover trends and insights. Its user-friendly interface can be trialled for 30 days for free, with plans starting from $199/month.
• Buffer: Buffer is a tool for publishing and creating posts, collaborating with your team, engaging with comments, and analysing or reporting on your social media content, all in one place. This platform is ideal for individuals and small teams, offering a free plan that allows you to connect up to 3 channels.
• Sendible: Sendible offers social media management features for scheduling, posting ideas, collaborating, reporting, engaging with audiences, and customising content for businesses. Sendible offers a 14-day free trial ,with plans starting at £21/month with access to 6 social media profiles.
• Later: Later is popular for businesses wanting to create and edit, and schedule and publish content. The platform also offers tools to help you post at the best time, generate captions, and suggest hashtags. Their social media management tool has a 14-day free trial, followed by the lowest plan of $18.75/month.
• SocialPilot: SocialPilot provides publishing support with a content calendar and bulk scheduling, as well as tools to help businesses with collaboration, engagement, analytics, and reviews. This platform also offers a shorter 14-day free trial, and has plans to suit a range of businesses starting from £20.40/month.
• SocialBee: SocialBee is an all-in-one social media management platform, covering content creation, scheduling, engagement, collaboration, and analytics. It also provides helpful integrations and an AI assistant, offering a 14-day free trial, and plans starting from $24.20/month which allows you to connect up to 5 profiles.
• Loomly: Loomly is a social media management tool that assists businesses with content creation, scheduling, collaboration, and tracking, helping to streamline workflows to drive results. Its platform can be trialled for free for 15 days, followed by the option to choose from a range of plans and features.
• CoSchedule: CoSchedule’s social calendar is ideal for entrepreneurs and small businesses, featuring tools to create, schedule, publish, and measure social media activity. The platform offers a free plan for one social profile, followed by the social calendar plan at $19/month with the ability to connect 3 social profiles.
• Canva Pro: Canva offers a Pro tool for users to create, plan, and schedule social media posts directly from its platform. The Pro plan is available at £100/year per user, providing premium tools for content creation, access to a wider range of templates, and Brand Kits to simplify content creation for all skill levels.

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Please note: This article provides guidance for information purposes only. It should not be relied upon wholly when making or taking important business decisions – always seek the services of an appropriately qualified professional. The views expressed by websites referenced to are limited to those of the websites, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Markel Direct. Markel Direct is not affiliated with any of the brands, companies or websites mentioned in this article.