As a new business owner, social media can be daunting and overwhelming to add to your marketing efforts on top of launching your business. I won’t deny that it is hard work to create an effective social media plan, but if you have the right tools and follow these tips to get you started, it can set you on the right path to grow your business online. These are 6 social media tips for new businesses:
Set social media goals
When starting out as a new business owner it’s easy to get discouraged from how far you’ve come because you’re not seeing the results “fast” enough in the way you thought you would.
Setting social media goals for your business can not only help push and encourage you in the direction where you want to take your business, but tracks and measures your growth. SMART goals are a great way to set social media goals.
Smart
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely
Start small and build from there! Want to have a high engagement rate? Start with a 5% goal and work your way up.
Make a goal or two for each month, quarter and year and review them on a monthly basis to ensure you’re on track.
Building a following and connecting with your audience online takes time for you to build yourself as an authority and create trust, so be patient!
Fill out your social media bios
Ensure you have every detail filled out on your social media profiles. Everything from your about section, to contact info, image covers, profile pictures, keywords in your name, industry type, booking information, everything! Use your branding colours wherever possible, too.
Some platforms have more robust sections to fill out (ie: Facebook) so take the time to fill it out completely so your audience understands exactly what you do, how you can help them, and where to connect with you further.
It’s also important to include a call-to-action (CTA) in your profile that people can click on once they land on your profile. You don’t want them to bounce off your profile!
This CTA link is commonly in the website URL section. Your CTA could lead to your lead magnet, to sign up for a challenge, to your newest product or webinar.
If you have an Instagram account, check out these 6 steps to a killer Insta bio that converts.
Batch create your content
Content batching is the idea that you sit down at one time and create all the content for your next week, month, or quarter. This allows you to have a creative flow, saves time and creates a consistent posting schedule. It saves you time and energy because it allows a creative block of time to be focused on one thing, instead of trying to quickly come up with a posting idea in between client meetings and end up posting something of lesser quality.
How often you use to content batch is completely up to you. A lot of business owners can get burnt out fast (which I’ll talk about below) so start with a time slot that works for you.
Let’s say you want to write all your social media posts for the next week. Block your calendar at a set time each week and make sure you have uninterrupted content batching time. Phone off, no distractions, a hot beverage and some pumping tunes! Get out of the house if you need to find inspiration.
The amount of time it takes to create content is different for every person, so do NOT beat yourself up if it takes all day. It will get easier as time goes on.
Creating content should be fun for you if you’re sticking to the topics that relate to your business. Choose 2-3 content buckets and topics for your niche that your audience will find useful.
Set a posting schedule
If you are just starting out as a new business, you ideally should be posting 3-5x a week depending on your industry, however pick a realistic schedule that works for you! You will burn out fast if you decide to push out too much content, and the quality of your posts will suffer.
Decide what days of the week you want to post, and if you want the posts to be through captions, images, graphics etc. Then stick to it each week!
I highly recommend using a scheduling platform as they provide tons of analytic information, drag and drop features, photo editing, hashtag research and auto-posting features.
Plan out your posts in advance with my FREE 2020 Content Scheduler right here.
Engage
Engagement means any time you like, comment, share, save or follow on social media. Just like you created a posting schedule, create an engagement schedule for yourself to follow. 10-20 minutes a day, 3-5x a week is a good place to start. You can choose to focus on one social media platform if that’s where your audience is the most, but don’t forget to engage on the other ones that you post on, too.
Respond to every comment on your posts, and DM new followers and those that comment often on your posts. Engage with the accounts in your feed and search for new ones to follow and comment on through hashtags or Facebook groups. Start building those relationships and trust piece with your audience!
Want to learn how to better engage with your audience? Read this post on 6 ways to increase social media engagement.
Review your analytics
Set aside a time each month to review your analytics. If you are using a social media scheduling platform, it should track all your data for you. If not, some platforms such as Facebook business pages and Instagram business profiles give you analytics. Put this data into a template where you track each month.
You essentially want to learn from your posts data so that you can apply the same or different techniques in future posts. Start by asking yourself basic questions like:
- What posts did well?
- What hashtags worked?
- What didn’t do so well and how could you change them in the future?
Data analyzing is an art in itself, but by taking a deeper dive into them you can learn about what your audience really needs from you.
Being on social media is essential to growing your service-based business, and if you want to take it one step further you can grab my Social Media Marketing Plan Workbook to guide you through it!