How do you Grow Your Reach on Social Media?

Social Media Strategy for Small Businesses

Hello! Deciding how to run your social media accounts can be tricky. How do you grow an audience? How do you develop your brand? How do you convert sales? Here are a few initial steps that should happen in order to get you pointed in the right direction.

1. Discover your target audience. Really take some time to think about who your best potential customer is. Who has the buying power. If you’re trying to reach college students, you don’t spend a ton of time on Facebook or LinkedIn; focus on Instagram, TikTok, Snap etc. Once you know who you’re trying to sell to and which platform you’re going to focus on (I always like to pick 2) you’ll be able to create a plan.

2. Do some market research about your target audience to see where they spend the majority of their content time. Do they like funny memes? Do they prefer crafty ideas? Are they interested in sports? This can be a simple DIY hack by the way. You don’t need to hire a firm to run reports for you when starting out, just get on social media and ASK PEOPLE WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ! Simple as that. By finding a foundation of content that you can provide daily to your new audience you’re creating brand trust right away. Your customers know that you’ve got the best source for the stuff they crave.

3. Create original content. Creating original content is important too, because it gives your brand a voice. It’s an opportunity to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry while stamping your logo/identity on those pieces of content. Like a flag in your informative mountain peak. If you need some help with the logo design, my firm does that! This is a great way to incorporate your products or services into your social strategy without being pushy or sales oriented – remember, and I say this a lot – IT’S SOCIAL MEDIA NOT SALES MEDIA.

4. The part about the ask. Now that you’ve taken a ton of time to provide foundational content value to your audience without even ONCE asking for a sale, it’s time to leverage all your hard work. Now you can politely ask your audience for a referral, sale, sign-up, review, or whatever it is. Once someone has an emotional connection to a brand on social media they’re 75% more likely to feel obligated to support the products in some way. Now with some platforms you might need to toss a little cash at these posts to get them going, but the impact and reach will be great because of the organic engagement you’ve already set in place with steps 2 and 3.

I typically like to do something like a 60/30/10 split for steps 1/2/3 but really it should be fluid and fit whatever works for your schedule. Hootsuite is a great tool to use if you’re looking. Buffer is also good but I find that it’s not great for multiple accounts. It’s a bit glitchy.

Hopefully this helps you out! And if you’re interested in a free brand consultation, please feel free to schedule here.

Thanks,

Dan, Founder and Creative Director