• Guide to social media for new Businesses

     

    Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, providing fantastic cost-effective benefits such as brand recognition and awareness, increased traffic and a platform to provide customer service. But before you can log on and start promoting your business, you need a strategy. Previously, social media marketing used to be the case of just jumping on and posting something. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. Now if you want to maximize your efforts, and create lasting effects, you’ll need a plan. Throughout this blog, I’ll provide you with a guide to social media for new businesses, taking you through everything from what to post, when to post and where to post it, breaking down the different platforms along the way.

    Guide to social media for new businesses. 

    Before starting your social media marketing journey, you’ll need to set up your accounts. For the sake of brand consistency, try to make your usernames the same over all platforms, allowing your audience to find your pages easier. On some platforms, like Facebook and youtube, you’ll need to add admins to your group for them to post on the pages. This is useful as you can set what they can and can’t do depending on their role. Once you’ve set up the accountants, you’re ready to start posting.

    Facebook.Facebook Guide to social media for a new business

    When people think of social media, they think of Facebook. This is probably because it has over 1 billion daily users and 2 billion monthly users. If your target customer will be anywhere, It’ll be Facebook. They also offer Facebook ads, a fantastic paid advertisement system which allows you to target people who interact with your organic posts.

    What should you post?

    Facebook can be seen as quite a conversational platform, but if people decide to follow your page, they are likely looking for updates, news and sales information. To get a good feel for what your audience wants, don’t be afraid to test a little and get a grasp of what resonates with them. You can post a range of content and analyse it looking at data such as engagement. Once you know what they like, you can stick with that.

    It’s important to remember when posting on social media that it is social, your customers will be seeing your posts amongst pictures of friends and family. This is why it’s important to not take the posts too seriously. Finding the right balance of looking casual, whilst also remembering to present value to the customer will allow your posts to fit into the feed better.

    How frequently should you post

    Optimizing post engagement is about balance, studies show that nowadays dominating a customer’s feed can lead to decreased results. On the other hand, if you post too little, you won’t be seen enough. The best way to approach is to see how much content you have to promote, then post it accordingly, a good rule of thumb is one a day.

    Instagram

    Instagram may be one of the newer platforms out there, but it can’t be counted out. With over 1 billion monthly users, Instagrams visual led platform has led to great success and fantastic business opportunities. 

    What to post

    One of the unique aspects of Instagram is it offers more than one medium of which you can post on. Now you have to decide what combination of posts and stories you are going to put out there. Guide to social media instagram for new businesses

    Posts– Posts should be photos, images or short videos that represent your brand and showcase your identity. This includes aspects such as brand values, personality, company story, what you can offer and some promotional stuff too. This can be done through pictures of products or things related to your brand, and also images with text on them providing information. 

    Stories – Stories are short videos that can be accessed through the top of peoples home page, or on your page. They are a more casual and conversational approach to promoting and allow for a wider range of content. Another benefit of using stories is it’s poll and question feature. It allows you to post questions to followers allowing for feedback and higher engagement. Followers will feel more connected to the brand if their opinions are being heard. You can post normal promotion on stories, but it’s good to include more casual stuff like behind the scenes and casual photos, making the brand more personable.

    How frequently should you post?

    The key with Instagram posting frequency is quality and consistency. If you start well, posting 5 times a week but suddenly drop off, you’ll lose followers. I believe with Instagram you can post more regularly than Facebook, with some brands posting multiple times a day, but be cautious of spammy content. Posting 3 promotional pieces on a person’s feed a day Isn’t going to work in your favour. Try mixing it up with a story asking for someone’s opinion.Guide to social media twitter for new businesses

    Twitter

    With over 500 million daily tweets, Twitter is known for its fast paced environment. It is a great place for consumers to follow along with what brands are up to and understand more information about them.

    What to post

    Twitter allows for a more broad range of content, with most brands posting news, contests, funny thoughts, sales, exclusives and insights related to their industry. Twitter allows for a more personable approach to promoting your business, as people engage more with posts in the comments, allowing you to speak directly to them, creating a sense of connection to the brand.

    How frequently should I post

    Considering there are 5,787 tweets a second, Twitter requires a slightly different approach than other platforms. To avoid your tweets from getting buried, I would recommend releasing a few a day. They don’t all have to be fantastic promotional posts, but It’s good for your audience to gain some brand recognition through seeing your tweets.

    I hope this guide to social media for new businesses has provided you with a thorough introduction to each of the main platforms and how to use them effectively. If you would like any more information or help with how to effectively use social media please feel free to contact our team here. Alternatively, if you interested in reading more Hubspot provide an excellent guide here.

     

    Details:  

    Written by Matt on behalf of ClearBrand, November 2020.

    To get in contact about working with ClearBrand on a project,
    please call +44 (0)118 959 9284 or email info@clearbrand.co.uk.

    Share this post: