As a small business owner, social media can be an albatross.
You know you should be using it — but with your schedule already bursting at its seams, you could do without the obligation of becoming fluent in algorithms and memes.
You’re not alone in your struggle. It’s common for small business owners to neglect their social media tasks simply due to being overstretched. And while we sympathize with your struggle, it’s a huge faux-pas not to capitalize on the incredible business-bolstering potential social media has to offer.
With hundreds of millions of daily users spanning numerous platforms, there are too many selling opportunities to overlook.
We get that your time is valuable. So, you want to make sure your posts are engaging, effective, and conducive to conversions — not ineffectual ripples in the social media ocean.
Thankfully, we’ve got you covered.
Below, are 5 helpful techniques that will help effectively engage your customers on social media.
Schedule for Success
Properly scheduling your social media posts is effective for two reasons.
First and foremost, creating a templated posting schedule inherent reinforces activity. Some small business owners don’t garner enough engagement on their posts because they’re too sporadic. It’s straightforward — if you aren’t posting consistently, there won’t be enough content with which to engage. Algorithms are also more friendly to consistently active users.
As a means to be more time-efficient, automate your social media schedule with free tools like Buffer so you can consolidate your weekly posts into one session.
The other reason scheduling is so crucial to your social media campaigns is that there are specific times during the day, on each respective platform, that generates higher engagement. Even with awesome content, you’re drastically hampering reach if you’re posting on Facebook during a Saturday, which is the platform’s worst-performing day.
However, your organic post engagement might not adhere to conventional posting times. In which case, monitor how your content performs at various times and analyze where you get the best results.
Feed Algorithms with Videos
According to SocialMediaToday, 64% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video. And according to g2crowd, approximately 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.
Furthermore, Facebook posts containing videos achieve 135% more engagement than those that don’t. And videos on Twitter are 6x more likely to be retweeted than still images.
With today’s awesome mobile devices, filming is frugal, easy, and the most effective way to show off your product or service to your network.
Really want to jumpstart engagement? Facebook claims that adding captions to your video can boost view-time by 12%.
Get with the Gram
Instagram is the only platform where still images out-perform videos. So, if you haven’t already, we suggest shoring up those photography skills.
Hootsuite reports that 72% of active users have purchased a product they’ve seen on Instagram. There’s a reason for such a number since, at 2.2%, Instagram has the best engagement rate out of any other platform.
To put that number into perspective, Facebook’s engagement rate is 0.22%.
Instagram’s hashtags make it easy to find relevant audiences outside of your current network. In fact, posts including Hashtags actually garner 12.6% more engagement than those which don’t.
Tag your geographical location in order to further pinpoint your target Instagram users.
With these various tools, Instagram allows you to expand your client-base while avoiding sky-high marketing costs.
Join in on the Action
One of the worst things you can do as a business on social media is only making your scheduled posts. Your network is likely to think you’re a bot.
Audiences need to know that there’s a personality behind the logo or the tagline. So, respond to comment threads and be an active part of your given page’s community.
Share relevant information, start comment threads by asking open-ended questions, and like other businesses’ content as a way to cross-promote.
Nurture Brand Loyalty
A really brilliant social media technique as a small business is to promote special offers to your current crop of customers. If you make these offers exclusive to your social page followers, it adds an incentive for people to subscribe to your page and engage with your content.
Another way to push customer advocacy and engagement is through posting about your digital loyalty program. In which case, Loopy Loyalty’s state-of-the-art digital stamp cards (for Apple Wallet and Google Pay) has you covered. Find out more today!
