Social media offers small businesses a cost-effective and dynamic platform to engage with the target audience, amplify branding and increase sales. Provided you approach it with a well-structured strategy and manage your social media pages properly, you can maximize your efforts to drive meaningful results. Since social media is never stagnant, you really need to be on your toes, learn and adapt to the ongoing changes in order to survive and excel. You need to adhere to social media management best practices and tips to elevate your marketing game.

What is Social Media Management?

Social media management refers to creating and posting valuable content to connect with people on various social media networks. Here’s a quick list of the common daily tasks that it encompasses:

Content Creation: Researching and producing engaging content in a variety of formats for different social media platforms

Scheduling: Planning all content creation in advance so as to stay consistent and post to each network at the best times

Monitoring: Keeping a constant watch on comments, messages and brand mentions on various social media channels  

Engaging with Followers: Swiftly responding to comments, messages and concerns in order to foster genuine connections

Analysis: Reviewing social media efforts to identify what works best and identify those areas where improvement is required

Effectively managing your social media won’t just expand the reach of your brand and drive traffic to your company website, but it will also help you build long-term, deeper relationships. What is crucial is that you share content that delivers value and resonates with the audience you seek.

Social Media Management Tips

Given below are some useful tips for small businesses to get started with social media and successfully manage posting and pages.  

#1. Focus on the Right Platforms

It’s not a good strategy to be on every social media platform. First, you should identify which platforms are ideal for your small business. You will need to carry out some research to find out those networks where your target audience is most active. Focusing on the right platforms will help you get the most out of your efforts and build strong, long term connections. Whether you plan to generate more website traffic, increase sales or boost audience engagement, all of this will be much easier when you carefully select those platforms that fit your brand.

Get a sound understanding of your target audience by looking into their demographics, online behavior and platform preferences. Most of all, take stock of the resources you have for your social media management. You can’t choose those platforms that fall outside of the scope of your resources.

Focus on just 1-2 social media platforms at first and keep a close watch on how you are performing on each platform. Finetune your strategy to get better results. Expand to other channels gradually over time.

#2. Have Clear Objectives

Having clear objectives from the start is pivotal to the effective management of your social media accounts. Decide what exactly you want to achieve so as to keep yourself on the right track and succeed.

Setting clear goals keeps you on the right track. It allows you to do everything within the budget and the time constraints that you have. So, make sure your goals are practical and realistic. You don’t want to set goals that you can’t achieve, considering the limited resources you have. As a small business owner, you need to aim for goals that you can attain. Establish a date and time by which you plan to complete your goal. Above all, choose the right metrics to track your progress. All of this is essential for the successful management of your social media.

#3. Plan Your Content in Advance

All good social media managers understand the significance of scheduling social media content ahead of time. It’s a big time-saver and helps you ensure you always post at the right time without any delay. 

It’s a good practice to use a content calendar, which allows you to plan and organize all your upcoming content in advance. You can either create a content calendar on your own or use a free template. When you create your social media content in advance, you will make social media pages management for yourself and your team easier and more effective. Small businesses can benefit a great deal from including these practices into their overall marketing strategies.

#4. Recycle Your Best Content

Creating fresh content for every social media post can be time-consuming. You don’t always need to brainstorm for new content. It’s a good idea to take your best performing content and turn it into another format and post it to your social media pages. It’s about being smart and saving time.

Recycling or repurposing existing content can help you generate a good deal of content material for posting to social media. Take a re-look at your existing website and blog post content. Check out the performance of this content in terms of traffic, engagement and backlinks acquired. Evergreen content, in particular, is excellent material for social media posting. All you need to do is repurpose it into different formats such as Twitter cards, short videos, polls, infographics, animated GIFs etc. You can even turn lengthy video content into shorter video clips.

Republishing existing content in different formats across channels makes your social media management a lot easier. 

#5. Watch Your Competitors

Learning should never stop. When it comes to effective social media management, you should study what your competitors are doing and take a lesson or two from there to refine your own approach.

As a small business owner, monitoring others in your industry can help you a great deal and pay great dividends. By watching your competitors, you can develop a deep and insightful understanding of their strategies, stay on top of marketing trends and learn from their mistakes. Competitor analysis can help you level up your game and give your social media a good footing.

#6. Stick to the Basics

While the social media landscape continues to evolve,its key aspects remain the same. So, you shouldn’t forget the basics of enhancing content visibility and making it easy for users to find your shared content.

Effective use of hashtags helps you categorize your social media content for searchers to find information of their interest. Use hashtags that would expand reach as well as those that are most relevant to your intended audience. Always, stay on top of trending hashtags and incorporate them into your posts to maximize results. Likewise, create hashtags that are specific to your brand. Just remember to keep them short and easy to understand and remember.

In any case, don’t put too many hashtags in your social media posts. This doesn’t just look spammy, but also reduces engagement. Use hashtags in variations and find out for yourself what works best.

#7. Maintain a Consistent Tone

You can’t have one communication style for Facebook and another for LinkedIn. This will reflect badly on your brand image. 

In order to differentiate your small business from competitors, you need to build trust with your customers. Establishing a positive reputation is essential for you to attract new customers and retain the existing ones. That is why it is of utmost importance to keep your messaging and tone consistent across all social media platforms. Regardless of the content topic, always use a similar voice and style to allow the audience to connect with your brand quickly and easily.

Understand your target audience and choose a language tone and style that aligns with their style of communication. Further, create a set of guidelines for your team to follow for social media content creation.

#8. Humanize Your Business

People connect with authentic personalities behind businesses, not a business itself. If you plan to build genuine connections with customers, you should showcase the human side of your small business.

There are multiple ways in which you can humanize your small business. Go behind the scenes to give people a glimpse into your brand’s vision and culture. Showcase the key talents in your team and how they have contributed to the growth of your business. Let your potential customers see how your products and services have impacted people’s lives, establishing trust as a result. Share customer success stories using a language that resonates with the audience.

Humanizing your business will quickly set you apart on social media while helping you build a vibrant community of fans and followers. You’ll forge meaningful relationships and trust and rapport as a result.

#9. Stay on Top of Latest Trends

When you want to effectively manage your social media and get the most out of it, you should remain up-to-date with the latest content topics and activities on different social media platforms that you use. 

You don’t have to keep track of every trending topic, as it can be very hard. But you should be aware of those topics and trends that are relevant to your small business or brand. Having this knowledge will help you understand what engages users most and how the social media scene is evolving. Social media is changing on a constant basis and you need to be well-informed.

By keeping up with the latest and most popular social media trends, you will be able to create compelling content for your target audience and refine your strategies in order to stay ahead of the curve and relevant.

#10. Partner with Influencers

Connecting with influencers is a great idea for getting your brand message out there in front of the intended audience. 

You can spread the word about your brand through guest posts, sponsored posts and product reviews among others. All you need to remember is that you should partner with only those influencers that you think are a perfect match for your specific needs. You need to work with those industry experts and YouTube and Instagram influencers who have followers who might find your products and services of interest. It’s a good idea to research the influencer’s audience demographics, engagement rates, content quality and their connection with followers.

In any case, don’t forget to ask the influencer about their pricing and payment methods to avoid potential discrepancies.

Need Help with Your Social Media Management?

For small businesses, managing multiple social media accounts and pages on a regular basis can be quite challenging. Posting content daily, responding to messages and comments, staying abreast of the newest trends and monitoring competitors among others are just too much for a business owner to handle, particularly because you need to focus on other key aspects of your business. Working with a social media manager can be of great help, even if you hire them part-time. If you look for help, feel free to contact us via a phone call or email.