Social Media and Small Business

With Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google Plus, there is no shortage of social media platforms to join. It can be exhausting to keep up with all of them. Especially since the list above doesn’t even include all of your choices, AND they’re constantly changing and updating. So what is a small business to do? Don’t stress about it. The Web Guys are here to ease your stress.

Contrary to what most believe, you don’t have to create a profile on every single social platform for your business. You can of course, but only if you have the time, manpower, and money to do so. For most small businesses, however, that’s most likely not the case. Let’s examine the best way to determine a good social strategy when resources are limited.

Choose Your Audience

You know your business better than anyone else. What do your customers have most in common? Are they all around the same age? Predominantly male or female? Once you decide who exactly you’re trying to target, you can dial in on which social media outlets will work best for you. If your company is mostly business to business, then starting on LinkedIn would be a great option. If your business is centered on home decoration, give Pinterest a go.

Knowing your audience will allow you to get the most bang for your buck.

Choose Your Budget

Are you planning on running ads? If not, Twitter may be a good option for you because at no cost it’s easy to insert yourself into conversations and search for users talking about services you offer. You can pay to advertise on Twitter, but it’s not necessary.

If the audience you decided upon fits best with Facebook, it’ll be a good idea to find a budget for Facebook ads, even if it’s the minimum $5 per day or paying to boost a post here and there. This is because Facebook limits how much of your audience you can reach until you pay to reach more. That’s not the best system for small businesses, but on the other hand, Facebook advertising system is incredibly powerful.

Choose Your Engagement

How much time are you going to be able to dedicate to your social efforts? The different platforms have different demands in terms of reaching your audience. Facebook, for example, really only requires 1 or 2 posts per day. Twitter, on the other hand, is more of a conversational effort, and requires searching out tweets and responding to them. Everything on Twitter happens live, so it takes a bit more to keep up with it.

At the end of the day there’s no need to worry about managing all of the different social platforms. If you can, that’s great. They’re very powerful tools and can help you grow your business. However, with limited resources, it’s better to be great on one social network than mediocre on all of them.

If you need help managing your social media efforts, The Web Guys are here to help in any way we can. Contact us today at (317) 805-4933.