Ever since Facebook launched in 2004, social media has evolved from simply being a space for personal interaction and expression, to also become a vibrant marketing and direct-to-consumer sales channel. For small businesses, social media is no longer a nice-to-have platform for engaging with customers, but table stakes for competing in an increasingly digital marketplace.
Regardless of whether you’re looking for insights on how to use social media for business for the first time, or if you’re a seasoned pro looking for ways to step up your social media marketing game, we’ve got you covered. Here’s what you need to know about using social media for business in 2024, starting with the basics, followed by a channel-by-channel breakdown below.
Why use social media for business?
We live in a digital age, and one of the most-used aspects of a digitally infiltrated life is social media. As a business, if you’re not building your brand or actively marketing your products on social media, you’re choosing to get left behind. Here’s a few key reasons why using social media should be an essential part of business operations:
- Using social media for business can help increase brand awareness for existing and prospective customers:Increasingly, consumers use social media when searching for products—furniture, clothes, makeup—or in making decisions about what to eat, where to travel, and more. Building your brand’s presence on social media allows current and prospective customers to easily find you and consider your business for their next meal or purchase.
- Using social media for business can help you acquire leads in a low-cost way: Maintaining and growing your business depends on building a steady customer base through marketing and advertising. And when times are tough economically, one of the most cost-effective ways to market to existing and prospective customers is through social media. Social media provides a way for potential customers to engage with your business and products before, during, and after they decide to buy—and you don’t necessarily have to put advertising dollars behind your content for it to work.
- Using social media for business reinforces what you are building offline:If you have a strong offline brand that you’ve built through years of operating your retail or restaurant business, social media is an opportunity for you to reinforce and showcase that trustworthiness and dependability to a new audience.
How to create a social media marketing strategy
Convinced you need social media for your business? While it might be tempting—and certainly fun—to just dive right into content creation, your first step should be to create a social media marketing strategy to help guide what channels you should show up on, what kind of content you should be creating, and how to measure your success. Taking these steps first will help ensure your social strategy aligns with your business strategy—and your bottom line. Here are a few steps to consider to help you get started:
Step 1: Define your social media goals
Anyone can create eye-catching content on just about any channel, but if you don’t clearly define goals and objectives to guide how your business shows up on social media and what you want to achieve, you might as well just be shouting into the void. Before worrying about how many people are liking or following your content, we recommend first asking yourself: What is your business goal (or goals) for social media? Do you want your social accounts to generate leads? Drive customers to visit your website? Improve customer engagement? By answering that question, you can provide yourself with a “North Star” to help you stay focused on the purpose behind every post.
Step 2: Define your target audience
Who are the people you feel would engage with your business the most online? What kind of customers are you looking to attract? You need to know who you’re trying to reach first before you can set out to reach them. If you’re an established brick and mortar retail or restaurant business, you no doubt already have a good sense of who your customers are based on existing foot traffic and POS system data. But if you’re just starting out online, you might need to do a little research to identify the demographics of whom you’re likely to reach. Here’s where social analytics, competitive analysis, and a little social listening can give you gold.
Step 3: Establish what metrics matter to you
Likes and followers aren’t the only success metrics when using social media for business. Before launching your social media marketing strategy, you need to determine what metrics best align with your newly defined goals and your target audiences. Looking to reach new customers? You may want to focus on how many unique users are seeing your content on a monthly basis. Looking to drive customers to your website? Click-throughs may be the best indication of how many people are interacting with your content and brand. The most critical point is to ensure your KPIs (key performance indicators) align with the bottom line of what you are trying to accomplish on social media.
You may not be able to answer these and other questionsstraight away. A good marketing strategy is one that evolves over time, and there is much more to a good strategy than can be covered here. Here are links to two organizations that have done some of the legwork to get you started:
- Hootsuite’s How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 9 Easy Steps
- SproutSocial’s Social media marketing: What it is and how to build your strategy
How to determine which social media platform is best for your business
Not all social media channels are created equal. They each offer their own unique strengths and opportunities for business. And while determining which social media platform is best for your business can feel a bit overwhelming at first, you don’t need to be on every channel to have an effective social media presence. You just need to be on the one (or ones) that best align with your social media goals and the audiences you’re looking to reach.
Here’s a brief primer to help you determine which social media platforms are best for business:
TikTok
How can we help?
If you want to learn more about how Clover can help you accept payments, run your business and sell more, please contact your Clover Business Consultant. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
This information is being presented for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or tax advice. Readers should contact their attorneys, financial advisors, or tax professionals to obtain advice with respect to any particular matter. Clover assumes no responsibility for any information contained on any third-party website.