How can you use social media to help local businesses succeed?

The biggest mistake most local businesses make is being overly promotional with their social media. These posts will usually get low engagement, because who wants to see ads in their feed? It's OK to be promotional sometimes, but don't go overboard. 80% of your content should be fun, inspiring, or conversational and focus on building your brand. The other 20% can be promotions. Think of it like a bank: every time you post something fun you're making a deposit, and every time you post something promotional, you're making a withdrawal.

To help local businesses succeed on social media, focus on creating engaging content that showcases their products or services, encourages community interaction, and highlights special promotions or events. Utilize local hashtags, collaborate with other businesses, and actively respond to comments and messages to build a strong online presence. Additionally, consider running targeted ads to reach specific local demographics and drive foot traffic to the business

I try to promote local businesses in my LinkedIn posts. This may be during small business month, or if I am discussing a certain topic that I feel a local business excels in, and sometimes it's just a review.

* Share success stories and testimonials from local customers. This builds trust and credibility for both your account and the local businesses you feature. * Seek feedback from your audience through surveys or polls. This helps you understand their preferences and tailor your content accordingly.

Using social media effectively can be a powerful tool for promoting and supporting local businesses Engage with the Community Promote Local Events and Specials Utilize Local Hashtags Highlight Customer Reviews and Testimonials Run Targeted Advertising Campaigns Collaborate with Local Influencers Create Engaging Content Utilize Location-Based Features Host Contests and Giveaways Provide Exclusive Offers for Followers Monitor and Respond to Feedback Remember, consistency is key. Regularly update social media profiles with fresh content, engage with the community, and adapt your strategy based on what works best for your specific local business and its audience.

"A chave é criar conteúdo relevante, envolvente e autêntico para a sua marca" - isso é essencial! Os consumidores est?o de saco cheio de comunica??es que falem mais do mesmo. E principalmente, de marcas do mesmo segmento ou parecido que sejam muito similares em suas comunica??es - sem inovar, trazer o diferente.

* Tailor your content to resonate with this specific audience. * Offer a glimpse into the day-to-day operations of the business. * Collaborate with other local businesses for cross-promotion.

If you are having a pet shop, and if you use your Social Media just for offers that doesn't work, whereas if you use it for review and customer testimonials and the product purpose like "Ticks Spray" and what is different from others that you sell, the customers will que and make sure you optimise your profile that customers can buy directly from the Instagram/WhatsApp too. Make their burden go away.

Once you know your audience you will be able to create valuable content for them. There is no cutting corners to this. As a business, you are offering products and/or services that are solving your audience's problems. This is why it is important to know their needs and interests, which will help you create content that is relevant to their needs, content that addresses their interests as well as authentic to your brand.

I think one way to create engagement between your customers and your social media accounts is by creating incentives for those who tag your products and post a photo on their social media accounts. This picture can also double as content for businesses social media accounts.

Your profile needs to answer 3 questions: - who are you? - what are you doing? - who are you doing this to? This will make sure that your ideal customers will start following you, not some random people who aren't interested in your offers.

Take advantage of special features on social media! For example, Instagram has pinned posts and highlight posts that can help you put the most important information about your small business upfront. Information like location, business hours, menu prices, and more are essential to highlight. Similar features can be used on LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

Profile optimization goes beyond just the “complete a profile” that social apps give you. You have to answer 4/5 W questions. Who, what, where, why. Who: Who are you? What: What are you doing? Where: Where do you want to go? (More introspective but the transparency can help build an authentic relationship with your audience) Why: Why are you doing it? By answering these questions you can, through action and consistency, optimize your profile to better connect with your audience or prospective audience.

One of the best ways for local businesses to connect with their audience is to give them something to post about and tag the local business. For example, a local bookstore could have a photo wall with signs like "Must read!" and "My TBR is growing!" to encourage people to take photos and post on social. A local coffee shop could connect with the community by posting deals like "First 25 teachers to show their school ID get 50% off today!" and then showing photos of some happy teachers with their coffees.

Social outreach, social listening, and community management are key in creating a realness with your brand. Brands like C4, McDonald’s, Slim Jim have absolutely killed it with community management by driving random interactions in inbound and outbound comment sections and dm’s that turn into brand loyalty and positive sentiment. If you can utilize community management well, it will be better than any content you could ever put out.

Having a local business brand that has social media presence got it's perks at the same time disadvantages too. Consider you are having a momo shop and every customer loves you... Your competitor can make a meme out of your shop to degrade your reputation or even open a fake profile and harass your profile. Make sure you get the blue tick mark if you can afford and mention your username in every offline promotional material you use.

In my experience, doing business and dating is very similar, you have to constantly check up on your customer or your future customer, show that you care, interact, wish them good night or good morning from time to time and build a trust relatationship!

If you can, you should I say. Jay Conrad Levinson said: Only do that marketing that you can do well! I agree 100% - if you like Social Media, then posting about what you do will make a difference for your business. Humans (people) can tell if you like what you do, always, as it transports in one way or another. Same goes for "digital".

There are 2 things you should remember: 1. Results take time. Don't try it out for a week and then decide it doesn't work. Create a strategy and test it for 3 months. Then look at the results and change or improve what doesn't work and double down on what works. 2. You don't have to jump on every trend. Yes, trends can help you reach a wider audience. But you need to reach your ideal audience, not random people.

* Consistent Messaging: Maintain a consistent tone and messaging across all platforms. * Analytics Tools: Use platform-specific analytics tools and external tools like Google Analytics to track performance.

You can look at and digest analytics all day, but without action and implementation they are useless. If you have some piece of content blow up and go viral, you need to capitalize. Absolutely use and abuse a topic that succeeded. Make content coming at the same topic from different angles, different mediums like video/pictures/blogs.

If "Measure and improve" is meant for content, the time frame is months. (Ads = weeks) Example: Getting 8 likes vs. 2, on content does not tell you much, but 20 vs. 80 does - a little. Maybe that particular piece was just great. Here′s Gary V`s way to find out if that piece has more potential: Make it an ad! The exact same piece of content that did well organically, test against a larger audience and see what happens. Did do well compared against your other paid media etc. - that`s how I do it.

In my experience, the more you learn, the less you know. it′s important to keep up on new trends, reading newspapers, following key opinion leaders, reports...and always upgrading. Industries evolve so fast that yo can′t be left behind if you don′t dare to learn more!

Your neighbour can be an influencer, and the hotel that you think is your rivalry needs you to collaborate with them. Remember collaborations and innovation are always loved by people. The competition is on down level, the higher people collaborate.

Geotagging your social media posts is important for small businesses because it can help you reach more potential customers, improve your local SEO, and drive traffic to your website. When you geotag your social media posts, you are making them visible to people who are searching for businesses in your area. This is a great way to reach people who are already looking for what you have to offer. For example, if you own a coffee shop, you could geotag your posts with the name of your city or neighborhood. This would make your posts visible to people who are searching for coffee shops in your area.

THIS IS SCARY! Yet, it`s true. The people that are already succesfull in what you do, learn from them. Your ego may scream, but it`ll help for sure. Why? Because if they have the same audience / market as you they figured something out, that you can now see and put to use. Adapt and innovate and stand on their shoulders that way.

Be consistent. That means posting at a regular frequency (but not too often as you can easily alienate your audience by bombarding them); using images and videos that follow your brand style; and sticking to the same tone and voice. This way, your audiences will quickly get to know what they can expect from you on social media. To help, consider creating a content calendar to keep you posting varied content at the right frequency. Create image and video templates in something like Canva. And decide how you want to come across (playful yet knowledgable, supportive and welcoming etc) to define your tone and voice.

For local businesses, the best way to get attention is to run social media contests and giveaways. This is a great way to generate excitement and engagement around your brand. You could offer a discount, free product, or gift card to the winner.

Social listening! Something I advise to every client every single time. People get it confused - social listening is NOT copying others similar to you/competitors or just random trends. Do it so you’re aware of what people are talking about and think about how it applies to your business. Social listening also involves sharing relevant articles/videos/content WITH your brand/companies thoughts and reflections on it. Often see people just sharing posts… that means nothing to your audience. Tell them why you found it worth looking at… do this regularly and consistently and make it part of your social media strategy and the algorithms but also your habit of consistency will start to build up the reach and repeat viewers :)

A significant challenge many local businesses encounter is limited budgets for marketing initiatives. It's a common misconception that effective marketing requires a huge blow to your bank account. In reality, social media platforms and organic marketing present invaluable opportunities that are often overlooked. With the right strategies in place, reaching and engaging with your target audience can be both cost-effective and highly impactful.

Showcase who you are and what you stand for in your community. This can go a long way! You can do things like: - Sharing your brand story. - Talking about the local causes you support. - Doing cross-promotions with other local businesses. - Sharing customer experiences. - Create and share initiatives like "Employee of the Month" on social media. - Share business updates (wins, awards or milestones.)