Leveraging Social Media for Small Businesses

Advertising for small businesses is tough! Due to the size of the business there is often times not a real big budget for advertising. Advertising through traditional means is often very expensive and the reach is very to difficult to quantify. I can’t begin to accurately tell you how many newspaper flyers or direct mailers I see in the recycling bin at the post office. Nobody watches commercials on TV anymore. Consumer are either fast forwarding through them or they are grabbing their phone to check their social media until the program comes back on.

According to Digital Trends there are some very eye-opening statistics when it comes to social media consumption:
* the average American checks their social media 17 times a day
* in some other countries it is as much as 40 times a day
* the highest usage is in adults between 25–54 years old
* the average American spends 4.7 hours per day on social media

Advertising = Attention. So where is your customers attention focused?

As a business owner you must leverage the use of social media to get your message and product out to your customers. After all the statistics show you exactly where their attention lies. Go to them.

If you can capture attention you will capture sales. People by and large do not want to be sold to. They want to see something, realize they need that, and then go and but it. Why has there been an increase in online sales? There is no hassle, it is easy, and they do not have to be sold to. People want value. So give it to them.

On average a business owner wants to post value to social media about their store or products at least 5–7 times a day. Not all of these postings will be a direct call to action to buy. If all you do is call to actions then your potential customer will just ignore or unfollow you. If you give value 3–4 times and ask/promote business 2–3 times then you will have a nice mix. The key is to give things away for free. That is the value. Teach them on a topic that relates to your product. Give. Give. Give. Then ask.

I will be the first to admit that as a business owner my time is at a premium. I have to be efficient and effective in how I work daily in order to have time for what I need to do. Reaching your customers is no different. It takes a lot of time to post to all the different social media sites — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat. There is a quicker way though!

The key is to find a good social media assistant site. There are many to choose from. Personally I use Buffer. This allows me to create posts in bulk and pick which social media sites they are distributed to as well as what time. The use of a good social media assistant sire will save you time and make you more efficient in your business social media activities. These sites also allow you to re-post highly successful posts at a later date. Another very cool feature is you can work ahead as much as you want! If you are going to be on vacation for 3 days then your posts can be made ahead of time, scheduled for release, and all the work happens while you are sitting back and enjoying the sun on the beach.

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You can reach me at greg@whatsyourdrivingforce.com