No matter what industry you are in, social media plays a huge role in promoting your business. But, growing a social media following can be a long-term process that is often time-consuming–especially without the right social media marketing strategy built to help you grow.
Today, we’ll be diving into how small businesses can expedite their social media following with 13 social media hacks. These simple social media tips will help snowball your social media presence into a full-on avalanche of success.
1. Use social media micro-influencers to help your small business get more exposure
If you are just starting with a social media marketing strategy, one of the quickest and most efficient hacks for increasing your presence is to have the backing of already established people on social media. Social media influencers can help to increase revenue-driving actions from your social audience since 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations on social media. A feasible way for a small business to do this is to look for micro-influencers—users with a strong following among your target audience.
If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to finding a micro-influencer to work with, then the best way is to leverage your own expertise. Micro-influencers can exist right within your own community or industry niche. Remember, they don’t need to have an absolute massive following. Even a small following can make an impact if the followers are folks who fit your target audience. Or, your “influencer” could even be a long-time customer who is willing to speak about the value of your business to their friends. Think of this as almost social media’s version of “word of mouth” marketing.
2. Be consistent
When it comes to social media, consistency is key in both your messaging and your posting schedule. In fact, it’s been proven that consistent brands are worth 20% more than those with inconsistencies in their messaging. Along with that, Forbes conducted a case study where they posted for a brand once a week on Thursdays for six months. By the end of the study, the brand’s blog traffic increased by 90% as well as social followers on Facebook grew by 30%, Twitter by 9%, and LinkedIn by 8%. So, taking a moment to identify trends in your best post’s timing and following consistently will help to increase your brand awareness over time.
3. Schedule your social media posts
Editing photos and coming up with the perfect hashtag or witty post to accompany your blog post link can take longer than we’d like to admit. Writing posts all at once can help you to strike while the iron is hot, and the momentum you gather can help you come up with caption ideas quicker. Then, you’ll have your posts cruising on their own and you can just “set it and forget it.”
With scheduled posts, consistency will come naturally and will inherently ensure you stay top of mind for viewers all the time. With services such as Sendible and Hootsuite, you can batch-create and schedule posts, making you a full-fledged social media hacker!
4. Optimize your images for all social media platforms
Every social media platform has different image sizes and requirements, so it can be cumbersome to post across platforms. The good news is that resizing features on resources like Canva allow you to create optimized versions of the same image for many platforms–with just one click! For example, in Canva, once you have chosen the image sizes you want, all you have to do is click ‘Resize’ and you will have them all opened up in different tabs, ready to use.
Unfortunately, every social media platform has its own specifications for optimum image sizes. If your image isn’t the correct size for the platform, it could get cut off or appears blurry to viewers. Not a good look for your business. So, working smarter not harder with tools like Canva when optimizing the same image for multiple platforms will save you time and headaches.
Here are the best social media images sizes for the top platforms:
- Facebook: 1080 x 1080 px
- Instagram: 1080 x 1080 px
- Twitter: 1200 x 975 px
- LinkedIn: 1200 x 627 px
5. Leverage blog posts for social content
If your blog isn’t getting as much traffic as you’d like, this neat social media hack can help. Not only will this boost your blog traffic, but it can help to diversify your social post content as well. Additionally, using this quick hack will help you keep up with the competition, as 97% of all bloggers use social media to drive traffic to posts. We recommend simply sharing blog links within your social post while adding a bit of flair to explain why you’re sharing the article.
Now, don’t take this personally, but it’s found that 59% of people will share an article without reading it first. The takeaway here is that you’ll also be boosting your social shares. So, it’s a win-win situation for both your blogs and social accounts since this tactic will drive social shares as well as blog traffic.
6. Get yourself a social media chatbot
A great social media hack to engage with your audience is through great customer service. 1 in 3 social media users prefer social media customer care services to telephone or email. More importantly, customers spend 20-40% more with companies that engage and respond to customers via social media.
Be that as it may, having someone available 24/7 to answer all your customers’ questions and complaints can feel impossible—especially for a smaller business. A great hack for helping with that is a chatbot, which you can program to solve some of the more common or minor customer problems on platforms like Facebook Messenger.
7. Speed up your social media following with S4S
Share for share (or shoutout for shoutout, or follow for follow—you get the idea) is a technique whereby businesses help each other by posting each other’s content with a particular reference or tag on an agreed-upon platform. It’s a great way for businesses that operate in similar markets or have complementary products to mutually benefit from each other’s social media reach. This social media hack works on almost every social media platform—and, best of all, it’s completely free!
8. Less is more
In other words, you don’t want to be pumping out so much content that your audience feels as though it’s being shoved down their throats. This is known as social media fatigue, and it’s not pretty. If you feel like you’re cranking out posts on any platform you can get your hands on but seeing no engagement, then odds are this could be happening to you. If you’re posting five times a day across all platforms, you might actually be over-posting.
Research shows that you should be posting five times per week on LinkedIn, once a day on Facebook, and up to seven times a day on Twitter. Any more or any less, and you could be losing engagement—and followers.
9. Post videos whenever you can
Or, any type of visual content. 68% of consumers prefer images to go along with content they engage with, but 50% preferred videos as well. In fact, 93% of businesses gain a new customer as a result of posting a video on social media. To get to this point, though, you don’t need anything flashy. Whether you’re promoting a product or a service, it’s found that 72% of customers prefer learning about a product or service through a video. So, even if your video is solely informational it can still add insurmountable value to your social posts.
10. A/B test your social posts
A/B testing, or split testing, is a great way to identify your “secret sauce” for what drives the most social post engagement if you’re unsure what’s resonating with your audience. With endless combinations of hashtags, images, call-to-action buttons, and so much more, it’s vital to be constantly testing for results. Especially since social media can feel very fleeting, you’ll already be switching up your post content pretty frequently to avoid post fatigue.
While the practice of A/B testing sounds complex, it can be as simple as scheduling two identical posts with one changed variable to compare later!
11. Look to your employees for a boost
When you’re looking to boost your social presence, the first place you should look is within your own team. When you hire an employee, they should become cheerleaders for your brand. Encourage your team to follow and engage with your social presence to increase your chances of reaching external connections they also may have that could turn into customers.
Additionally, sourcing content internally takes a load off your plate when it comes to coming up with what to post. Maybe you have an employee who enjoys writing that could contribute to a blog post for a social share, or a photo buff who can share their photos from the team picnic. If our mention of videos up above had your gears turning, then a great video idea could even be an employee interview.
12. Ignite a conversation
One of the most common goals of social media for a small business is to drive interaction or engagement with your posts. To achieve this, solely sticking to regular informational posts won’t cut it. Whether you’re sharing a blog or a product video, think of a way you can turn your post into a discussion question. People love to share their own ideas and opinions, so if you encourage them to comment an answer or react to a post, then you’ll see your posts go from boring likes to a highly interactive social piece!
13. Exclusivity can help scale your small business social accounts
This goes back to that age-old saying of “You always want what you can’t have.” While it may feel counterintuitive to have a private Facebook group or Twitter list, it actually could entice your potential audience members to join in on your brand’s social fun. If you feel like your “free for all” account has been hitting a wall, then trying to make your audience members feel “special” by being part of a private “club” might help them to stick.
When your account is public, people can view your content regardless if they follow you or not. But when you’re private, you’re teasing your audience with a bit of FOMO. It has even been found that social accounts can see up to 10% growth rate in followers once they go private. With social media being overcrowded with public information, trying this tactic will help your brand stand out.
Post away with these social media hacks!
You don’t have to dive into all of these social media hacks at once. We covered a lot, and to recap, here are our top 13 recommended social media tips:
1. Leverage micro-influencers.
2. Post consistently.
3. Schedule your social media posts.
4. Streamline your image optimization.
5. Leverage blog posts for social post content variety.
6. Try a social media chatbot.
7. Grow followers with follow for follow, or S4S.
8. Less is more.
9. Use videos for quality social post content.
10. A/B test whenever possible.
11. Source social growth internally via your own employees.
12. Ignite a conversation.
13. Exclusivity can help scale your small business social accounts.
When your accounts are feeling stagnant, working smarter not harder using these social media hacks will help you save time while building your small business’s social presence.
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