Small Businesses: 64% Increase In Brand Trust Using Social Media

Is this true?

According to a Sensis 2018 report ...

Almost two thirds of consumers (64%) will be more likely to trust a brand if they interact with consumers in a positive way on social media. This is up 12 points this year.

That is somewhat hard to ignore as small business owners. So let me show you 10 tips you or your team member can use to succeed with your social media.

Tip 1: Decide on Who You are Going to Speak to First

Don't make the mistake of producing content that interests you but doesn't solve your buyers problem or benefit them directly.

You will need to understand who you are speaking to, what interests them, motivates them and frustrates them. Only then will you know what content to put in front of them.

This is where a Buyers Persona can help. Sometimes referred to as an avatar or audience persona. Think about who your ideal client would be or maybe base it off your best client and build from there.

1. What have you found caused your clients to look for your product or service?
2. How did your product or service help them?
3. Did you clients tell you about what frustrated them before finding your product or service?
4. What were they excited most about when they found you.
5. Do you know their income? Maybe you can look research stats about their role online.
6. What education level do they have?
7. Where do they live? Where do they aspire to live?
8. What do they do on the weekend?
9. Do they have a family?

Here is an example of a buyer persona

You might have a diverse range of clients or prospects. But for the purposes of this exercise, I would focus in on one or two. Then expand when you start attracting these personas.

If you chose to ignore identifying your audience persona, your messaging and content will become more generic and less valuable to a persona. General information is often lost to more targeted content.

If you know who you are speaking to; creating content for them becomes simple and can be delegated.

Tip 2: Set Your Goal and Measure Your Progress

What you focus on grows. Every post should have a purpose. Is it to build awareness about a problem they didn't know they have. Is it to clearly articulate a problem they are experiencing. Is it to help position the prospect to use your product or service? Do you need to solve problems before they need you or educate them so they know why they need you.

Your posts need to be helpful to your prospect or provide them with value.

Have a think about why your business is on social media. Is it to build personal relationships with your target audience? Do you want to improve communication and engagement with your market in a scaleable way? Is it for awareness? Lead generations? An online portfolio? Is it because you want to humanise an otherwise faceless company?

Once you know why you want to use social media, you will know what to measure.

Your way of measuring success might be engagement, clicks, relationships, leads or referral traffic. Determine what success means to you and how it aligns with your marketing and business objectives. This will give you a good indicator if your efforts are moving you forward or just sucking up your resources.

Tip 3: Add Value to your Audience Persona

Have you ever met someone that just didn't stop talking about themselves? Wasn't much fun was it... People are naturally attracted to people who are interested in them. These are the people who ask how your day is going. They are interested in you so they listen and help if they can. This concept works on social media. Don't just talk about yourself no matter how cool you might be. It wears off after a while.

Here are some ideas to show you are interested in your audience

• Ask your audience what they’re interested in. Instagram polls are a fun and easy way to do this!
• Get to know your audience personally by reading and responding to their comments.
• Share tips and tricks that help them. For example if you are selling dog walking services, share the local dog friendly parks and beaches. Share dog training tips and useful products for dogs.

Tip 4: Share a Snapshot of Your Day and Include Your Audience

Behind the scenes. As long as the picture is clear, the less perfect the better because it looks more authentic and real. All you need is your mobile phone and maybe a portable light if you want to take it to the next level.

The most budget-friendly way to create content is by prioritising what content to create, and when. For example, what content can get you quick wins, and what requires more time.

Content creation doesn't have to be time consuming and expensive. You can literally take a video or photo of a task or job you're currently doing. Then write a sentence to give context on what you were doing. Share a bit of your personality to make it human. Did something go wrong? Did it work out? Were you or your customer happy?

When your audience feel like you’re investing in them with content that is helpful, inspirational and authentic, they’re more likely to invest in your business. Show them some love, and you’ll receive it back.

Tip 5: Focus on One or Two Social Media Platforms Only

Trying to reach everyone on social media isn't realistic. Its a dangerous trap to fall into because you either get so overwhelmed you don't start or you spread yourself so thin that your efforts are not effective and the whole exercise becomes too costly. The purpose of social media is to create effective content to build and nurture the communities that are key to your business success.

To make the best use of your resources, prioritise who you want to speak to and create content that works for them. This is the foundation of your goals and the messaging of your content.

You can use tools like Buffer to leverage your content and distribute it across multiple social platforms. But be careful with this one, you should optimise the post for that platform. For example: A twitter handle might not work on Facebook. An Instagram image has different size requirements compared to Facebook. You should also modify the the message on the post a little so it is the right length and the tone is suitable for that platform. If they all are exactly the same then your audience will notice and start to tune out because your messages start to look like spam. By modifying the content slightly and optimising for that channel you will come across and still having that personal touch and not automation spam.

You could focus on one platform only. The dilemma with distributing your post content across multiple channels is so your audience see your post where ever they are. Some people hang out on Instagram, others hang out on LinkedIn. The down side is if your audience is active on multiple social media channels it would likely feel a bit annoying. I think this is okay as long as you show you have personally optimised the image and content for that platform. You are basically repurposing your message for different platforms so its not the exact same message and image.

It is essential to set realistic expectations for your resource level. If you don’t, you’ll end up failing and lumping your social media plan in the “too hard basket.”

Tip 6: 80/20 Rule - 80% Add Value and 20% Self Promotion

You wouldn't like to constantly be asked to sign up or buy a product or service would you? Neither would I. Save yourself the heartache of a failed social media plan – don’t spam people with constant sales-speak. Instead, focus on being social and creating brand love.

Social media is a place to nurture relationships, build trust, influence purchasing intent and remain top of mind so when a need arises a client will remember you! As a starting point, I recommend the 80/20 rule. Be 80% social and 20% promotional.

Tip 7: Encourage Comments and Reviews

By encouraging comments and reviews, these will act as social proof. Customer generated content adds value and helps present your business as transparent and authentic. This can be the unique differentiator to your competitors.

Some business owners worry about receiving negative reviews so they disable customers posting reviews. You are better off allowing the reviews. Let your customers know that good reviews help your business. When (not if ...) you get a bad review, you just need to manage it. Ask for clarity on what the issue is. Then respond with a solution if you have one. Otherwise try to get the keyboard warrior on the phone or email. If they won't and you have an internal issue to resolve, apologise and provide a credit or voucher to make it up to them.

Remember to thank your customer for their feedback. You want to end it with the customer feeling respected and valued.

Sometimes the problem wasn't your business and you can demonstrate that too. If you get a good review, remember to thank them. Its good manners and shows future clients that you appreciate clients leaving a review. Whatever the case may be, you are being transparent and showing that you care about your customers and you have great customer service.

Warning: You need to jump onto these reviews as soon as they happen. Don't let them drag on because your business will look unresponsive. 

Sometimes business owners don't have the time to track and respond to these. As a business owner you are busy with the operations of your business, so delegate this task to someone in your team or outsource it. Anything serious enough to need your attention can be escalated back to you with recommended next steps.

If you are encouraging reviews, I would try to spread some of your reviews on Google in addition to the social media platforms you are investing in. This will show your business in Google Searches and Google Maps. Create a Google My Business Listing at https://business.google.com.

You want to have your reviews as social proof to compel your prospect to click on the call now button or visit your website.

Tip 8: Commit and Be Active

The truth is if you create a social media account and start posting content, you're not going to see results without investing time to engage your followers.

The best way to do this depends on the channel and your audience. Some key ways to create an engaged audience includes:

• Like and reply to all comments
• Like and comment on tagged photos
• Let your audience get to know you! You can have fun with your Instagram stories or live Facebook videos.
• Reply to messages as quickly and thoughtfully as possible
• Engage with similar accounts (even your competitors!)
• Share your client’s photos.
• Invite people to give feedback through polls.
• Run competitions for customers to share their photos and stories

Tip 9: Failing to Plan is a Sure Plan to Fail

Don't let social media throw you into a reactive cycle. Plan your content ahead of time with a content calendar. Schedule your content at the best times you get engagement using scheduling tools. This will take the last minute pressure off. It's much easier to create content that achieves your goals and to create a lot of it while you are in that frame of mind. So plan out a month or two in advance. Save yourself time and mental energy by batching this process and it allows you to keep the quality high because you can research deeper and put together more content for that one piece of research.

There are a variety of tools available. Depending on your usage there are free and paid tools. A free scheduling tool I use is Buffer. There are some problems with Facebook scheduling in Buffer so I schedule those on Facebook itself. LinkedIn, twitter can be done with buffer. Instagram has to be done manually.

You might need to test out some of these tools to see what works best for you, your team and your business. Most of these tools come with a free trial. HootSuite, Sprout Social, Schedugram.

Tip 10: Adapt and Grow

Social media is a rapidly changing environment. There are changes to algorithms daily. For example: The reach on Facebook has been reducing over time and you basically need to pay to get that reach. The cost isn't huge, depending on your targeting. You can enter $3 to $5 per day and Facebook will tell you how much reach you will get. Don't let these changes scare you away. You just need to know what is happening and as long as you are getting a return on your investment then it is worth it. Just be mindful that you need to be aware of changes and be prepared to adapt.

Because of this anything you read about social media is really just a guide or best practice. Also one size doesn't fit all. You have different audiences, different products and services and different ways of engaging and interacting. 

You might read that the best time to post is 2pm to 4pm because that is when people grab a coffee and check their feed. However if your target market is stay-at-home mothers, they might be doing school pickup and it is a very busy time for them. So use your analytics or facebook insights to fine tune your strategy.

But the main premise is that you connect and build relationships with your target market. Keep yourself top of mind so when they are ready you get the call or email.

Some tips to help determine when to post.

• Look at your or your competitors followers. What times and days are they engaging?
• Check your analytics for when your persona is online
• Test posting at different times and days and monitor the engagement and reach.

Social media should integrate with the rest of your marketing plan. If you're not sure why you're not getting the results your looking for reach out and get help. It might be something small that can change your results.