- 3 min read

5 Ways small businesses can improve their social media presence

1. Be Consistent

Consistency is key. Some small businesses post and post until they meet their goal and then they tend to drop off and not post as much. You want to be one of those businesses that are consistent and that social media users can associate and relate with. If you go offline for a period of time or only post once in a blue moon then your target audience may lose interest and seek their business elsewhere. However, being consistent can be hard work, on top of everything to do with running a business, so ensure you have the use a scheduling tool to help keep you consistent. Try to be consistent with what you post, when you post, and the tone that you use, and stick to business-related posts.

2. Create a recognisable brand (when people scroll, they should recognise your post)

Brand identity is basically telling your followers (old and new) all about who you are and what you do and what you are about.

The start of making your brand recognisable is having a story to go with it. Make your ‘pitch’ to followers short and to the point as this should encourage clicks and followers. Ensure you cover what you do, whom you help and why and what makes you stand out from others.

Making a brand logo is vital to becoming recognisable. It will help to represent your ‘brand’ and you also want it to be easy to remember to help boost brand recall.

3. Be human

Write as if you're talking to your friends. People buy people, so if they can identify with you then they will get to like, know and trust you.

You should make your posts direct, personable, and understandable. This shows your audience that you are genuine, relatable, and yet still professional. Talking to people in a language they understood will help break down any doubts. Stay away from business jargon; it puts people off and they will go elsewhere for their business.

Try showing a sense of humour. Yes, humour! Try it but make sure that you do not cause any offence to followers. Humour is an easy way to connect to people and is often used as a conversation icebreaker. Keep in mind that fun posts can still be informative for example a funny story that happened to you when you were designing your products.

4. Use emojis!

Emojis will attract interest when used in the correct place. People will stop and read.

Using emojis in your posts can show your business as being modern, more interactive, and responsive. Encouraging the use of emojis as a reply makes it easy for people to respond and can lead to your engagement levels increasing and therefore more awareness online. Statistics show that using emojis in your social media posts can give you 25% more engagement than without using them! Facebook even states using emojis can get you around 57% more likes and 33% more shares.

You can use emojis in various ways:

Use them in the body of your post to separate long text. This makes the reader pause and absorbs the information
Asking your audience to react to something, for e.g., asking them an emoji thumbs-up for a like or a thumbs-down for a dislike
Ask your audience to describe something without using words. Not easy but so much fun

5. Don’t try to do everything yourself.

Ask for help! Use a scheduling tool or, if finances allow, hire a social media manager.

It’s tricky trying to manage multiple social media accounts on various platforms. It can use up valuable time that could spend elsewhere.

There are a couple of options you can look at:

Hire a social media manager; they can take away the stress of creating and planning posts for you. They can do all the graphics, engage with followers and have the time to answer any questions people have. Of course, this is an expense some may not be able to budget for.
Use a scheduling tool. We have, in recent blogs, told you how effective scheduling tools can be. Setting aside time to do your planning for the month ahead is a great time saver in the long run. You can be more creative with your posts when they are planned rather than rushing them and they turn out to be less quality and quantity.