BBB: Social media a key marketing tool in 2024

Businesses don’t need to invest thousands to succeed at this type of marketing, but can use social media strategically and effectively as part of a long-term marketing and sales plan. They can work with organic posts or paid advertising boosting that content, following a regular schedule, instead of posting randomly a few times a month, and using the same hashtags with each post. 

To be strategic and effective with social media, small businesses don’t need to invest a lot, but do need to take a few steps to develop their online presence and increase their audience reach. They can start by selecting the optimal platforms for their business goals and that match what they offer. For instance, Instagram is great for businesses with visual products to showcase their offerings, like clothing or jewelry, while X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook can help build relationships and customer service.

There are a few other steps small businesses can take with social media marketing from creating a plan to doing the analytics.

• Small businesses can create a social media plan with clear, realistic goals, such as SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely), tied to current growth opportunities and attainable with the business’s available resources. Businesses do this by identifying their specific target audiences and the best ways to reach them. They also need to get staff buy-in so that employees are including an active and engaging online presence as part of their workday. That presence can include things like promoting brand awareness, collecting reviews, and building hype for upcoming events, sales and product releases.

• Businesses can plan content, dedicating a block of time to the work – they can create a monthly social media calendar to automate postings and avoid creating things on the fly, while also boosting productivity and content flow. Coming up with content to post every day can be more time-consuming and stressful than having a plan in place. The calendar can include types of content, like images, infographics and blog posts, as well as posting dates, social media networks, and any links, tags or hashtags. Scheduling tools like Hootsuite can be used to make the posts automatic and keep posts in one place, while automation tools like chatbots and AI content creation tools are sources to create some of the content.

• Businesses can make sure the content is compelling and high quality and resonates with customers. To do this, they can avoid generic posts solely focused on promoting sales and instead provide something of value, potentially positioning the business as an industry expert while creating brand value and attracting more customers. The content in the posts generally should follow the 80/20 Rule, with 80% focused on informing, educating and entertaining and the rest on sales and promotions.

• Businesses can consider community management, the process of building a community with their customers through online interactions. They can do this by interacting with customers, such as replying to comments and answering questions, helping the customers feel connected to the brand and the company, and making sure some of the content links back to their websites. Community management also boosts ranking in social media algorithms, rewarding those who are active and engaged, so that they’re more likely to show up in followers’ feeds. 

• Businesses can use social media analytics to learn about their customers and the market and industry—the analytics often are integrated on social media sites, or a business can create their own. Analytics can be used to track what works and what doesn’t to guide future posts, identifying the topics that generate the most interest and the posts that get the highest level of engagement with likes, clicks, comments and shares. Those posts can be replicated, while posts that aren’t performing well can be changed out for new content. 

Businesses can invest a little time to make social media marketing work for them, especially considering that there are more than 4 billion active users worldwide and that 71% of small-to-mid-sized businesses use social media as a marketing tool, with 52% posting daily, according to Hootsuite. 

Social media marketing is a way to reach more potential customers by leveling the playing field between small and large businesses. It helps businesses understand customers’ needs, interests, desires and behaviors, while also building long-term relationships with them. It also helps increase brand awareness and business visibility, helping businesses stay on top of their game so that they grow into 2025.