How to Build Your Brand With Social Media For Small Business

Marketing is essential for all small businesses and, today, that means mastering social media. But it’s not just a case of throwing up a post whenever you think of something to write; you need to plan your posts and produce content that engages audiences and entices them to find out more about your business. This guide will help you build your brand with social media for small business, paying close attention to the fact that you will probably have many other tasks to complete too.

I completely understand how much you dread taking on yet another task when you are building your business. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many important jobs to complete. However, without a strong social media presence, you will struggle to get your name out there. Building a brand online does not have to take up too much time, if you put some of these handy tips into practice.

1)  Use a Simple Design App

Social networks increasingly value visual content over the written word, so you need to make your posts stand out. In fact, Instagram requires images with every post. Not only does a striking image capture the eye, but it also takes up more of the user’s screen, making sure your brand is front and centre for them to feast upon.

You might be thinking that being a graphic designer is not in your skillset, but do not worry. You don’t need to go away and learn Photoshop, there are plenty of simple design apps available for you to use to make on-brand visual content with ease.

Use an app like Canva, which starts out free and has a low-cost premium option. With Canva, you can create a Brand Kit with your company colours, font and logo close at hand whenever you are crafting a social media image. It has a wide selection of stock photos, grids, frames, animations and templates to customise so that you can create professional looking social media images in seconds, ready to go live and make your feed look carefully curated.

2)  Schedule Content in Advance

The key to social media success is to post regularly, but it isn’t efficient to create posts on the day, every day. You are better dedicating a block of time on one day to schedule posts for the week. This way, you get in the creative zone and the momentum makes you more productive. Trying to build up to creating new content every day means you do not use your time as efficiently.

In addition, once you have used a scheduling app such as Buffer to create a whole week’s content, you don’t have to worry about that process again. Your posts will go out as planned and you will have a continuous online presence for your brand.

When scheduling ahead, you can also create a better mix of content because you have an overview over how the week will run. Try to mix up content about your products, sharing third party posts that appeal to your target audience and fun, light-hearted posts too. A good mix keeps people interested when you are building your brand with social media for business.

3)  Interact

Although you don’t have to think about creating social posts for a week, you should certainly check in on your posts and respond to any comments. The algorithms of the main networks value interactions on posts when boosting them in people’s timelines. This means engaging with commenters and keeping the conversation going. As Alfred Lua of Buffer states: “Facebook likes authentic accounts that contribute to their community and create meaningful interactions.”

Once again, dedicate some time to spend replying to comments and liking them. This allows you to develop a brand and personality for your business online. You can come across as friendly and useful, which are both benefits when trying to entice new customers.

4)  Let People See Behind the Scenes

When building your brand with social media for small business, it can be worthwhile offering a sneak behind the scenes to your followers. They get to know the public face of your brand, but people love knowing what happens behind the business front. Share videos and blogs about you, your staff, how you go about getting the product to market or anything that shows the human behind the company.

People buy from people, so the saying goes. This means you can occasionally let your hair down and post something ‘real’ about yourself. It can be fun, serious or anything in between. Just make sure it is relatable and do not overuse this tactic. Remember that you do need to sell some products or promote your service too!

5)  Delegate

Social media is important and, although you can cut the time you spend on it using design apps and scheduling software, you might still find it difficult to dedicate enough of yourself to build your brand with social media for small business.

In this case, you can always delegate your social tasks. You do not need to take on a full time member of staff (although that would be nice), but you can use someone like a virtual assistant who can design your images, write your posts, schedule them and even interact with them if you wish.

Do not be afraid to delegate tasks where you do not feel you have the full skillset to succeed. When it is as important as social media marketing, it makes complete sense to make sure you get it right.

Good luck building your social media for small business, and don’t forget to connect with us on Instagram!