Lucy Harvey, BA (hons) Marketing Management student

Are you struggling to get your small business a strong following on social media platforms?

Small businesses are often mistaken for believing that social media marketing doesn’t need to be implemented for their company as they already have a loyal, communal following that are aware of who and what they stand for. However, this mindset is limiting the possible audience in and around the local area who aren’t aware of your business, but require your services, which your competitors could easily steal just by being on social media.

A successful social media campaign will include the following steps, in order to see a growth in traffic and overall sales:

1. Create a marketing strategy plan and a set of smart objectives
2. Research your audience, current trends and market place
3. Post engaging content to social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, such as competitions, stories, images, videos and polls
4. Create a relevant hashtag for your audience to share with their friends and family to establish brand identity
5. Introduce a reward system – this incentive offers rewards to customers after each visit to eventually receive a free product/service will show an increase of returning and loyal customers. An example of this is Starbucks, offering their audience stars to collect to redeem a free drink.
6. Engage with your audience regularly to build a strong relationship

Using Google Analytics; your small business can then measure what parts of their social media advertising is working and where they are generating traffic from. This could be an opportunity to be more specific in your advertising, and if it is generating interest from people not in the area, you could consider expanding your business globally if there’s a desire for your product/services elsewhere. Expanding your business will therefore increase revenue which you can then be implemented back into your social media campaigns, to continue to grow your brands reputation positively.