Digital Marketing Strategies Every Small Business Needs
Main Street Hub and Cratejoy share expert tips during Small Business Week
At Main Street Hub, we help thousands of small businesses by elevating their online presence and taking care of their social media, online review responses, and email marketing so they can focus on serving their customers and their local communities. We teamed up with Cratejoy, a subscription box marketplace for people of all interests, to provide small business owners with our key digital marketing strategies during Small Business Week.
In this webinar, we educated business owners on how to guide potential customers to their doors by engaging with them on social media (specifically Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) and online.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are powerful social media platforms when you have an effective digital marketing strategy in place. Taking the time as a business owner to learn more about social media marketing will help you grow your business, build brand awareness, and increase your bottom line. Here are some key tips from our joint webinar:
Tune into the full webinar here:
How to make your Facebook page stand out
Some of the most frequent questions our Local Outreach Team gets from small business owners are, “How do make my Facebook page reach my audience?” and “How do I stand out from the crowd?” These are key questions since over one-third of Facebook users engage with brands regularly, according to SproutSocial.
Consumers looking through their newsfeeds for compelling content — and sometimes all it takes to get their attention is showing off your products and services. If you use a photo of your sandwich that’s on special that day, a great graphic to remind them of the event that’s coming up at your business, or your team hard at work, you’ll get their eyes on your brand to potentially bring them to your door.
Other than posting photos, businesses should also ensure that their feeds are varied and interesting. Ask questions to get your audience engaged and collect positive testimonials from your loyal fans and followers.
For example, if you’re a B&B in Asheville, NC, you could ask your followers:
Do you have photos from your most recent stay with us?
What’s your favorite thing to do in Asheville?
You can also show off your team. One of the best things about being a local business is that your team and community have the opportunity to get to know each other. If you post photos of the people working hard every day to make your business thrive, you’re showing your online audience how deeply you care about your team. This helps your current and potential customers get to know your business through your team, and understand that you’re the kind of business that puts your team and customers first.
How to automate your Instagram growth
Since Instagram has 800 million monthly active users, you know that at least some of your customer base is there. And, it’s important to note that 60% of Instagram users are using the platform to find new products. It’s clear that not only are Instagram users using the platform to check out their friends’ feeds, but they’re also using it to follow their favorite brands and discover new brands.
Instagram can take some time. It takes time to post, to learn how it works, and to learn how to grow your following — especially while you’re running your business — so, here’s how you can automate your Instagram growth.
Batching content creation
It’s important on Instagram to post regularly — at least at a cadence that your audience can get to know. Whatever your availability is to post, it should be consistent. What Cratejoy recommends is to set aside a few hours on one day at the beginning of each month to take photos and write captions for that entire month.
Use the day to take photos of your product, take behind the scenes photos, get videos and photos of your team, create graphics with testimonials, tips, or quotes, and other varied content. It will save you hours doing this ahead of time instead of trying every day to come up with witty content!
Once you have the photos, you can pop them into a Google doc and write your captions underneath each one so your posts are ready to go when you need them. Putting them in a Google doc allows you to share easily if you need higher ups or other team members to edit or vet the captions before the post goes live.
Tip! While it’s a great idea to plan your content in advance, users also appreciate authentic, in-the-moment photos and videos. Think about how you can integrate things happening live with posts you have planned out in advance to keep your users engaged and loving your posts.
Use Notepad to Store Hashtags
If you’re often posting with your local audience in mind, you are probably using a handful of the same hashtags for each post. And, it’s not always easy to remember each one and type them out by hand for every new post. Cratejoy recommends using the Notepad app in your phone to store these hashtags for easy use when you bring out your phone to post on your business’ Instagram. Go ahead and write all of those hashtags that you commonly use into your Notepad, and that way, you can easily copy and paste those hashtags into Instagram on your next post.
Get Content Ideas and Inspiration from Other Brands
If you’re stuck and don’t know what kinds of content to post, Cratejoy recommends heading to Google and searching for “Instagram Challenge.” Then, go to the Images tab, and check out the companies and bloggers that have created and participated in Instagram challenges. This is an easy way to get some prompts and ideas for what to post next.
Automating follower growth
We all want to get in front of the right kinds of followers. But it’s not enough just to post, you have to engage with people. When someone comments on your image on Instagram, give them a friendly reply.
If you have ten likes on your post, go through each of those likers, check out their posts, and give them some likes on their posts. Taking the time to engage with your followers in this way is going to tell the the people who are following you that there’s a real person behind your brand account and that matters — consumers like to feel connected to brands and like they’re getting authentic content from them.
You can also engage with potential new customers and broaden your follower base with the right kind of people by finding users who are using hashtags that are related to your business and like their posts, too. You want to make sure that your followers are interested in your product, that they’re invested, and that they’re going to like and engage with your posts. They’ll only do that if they like your niche or your product.
How to connect with local users on Twitter and Instagram
This is especially helpful for local business owners to connect with their local community. You can use and search city, state, county, etc.-related hashtags on Instagram and Twitter.
Use local hashtags
@thehaleycakes is a local bakery in Austin using the #atx hashtag because she’s a local business and she wants to get in front of customers in her city.
You can see that her post is in the top posts under the #atx hashtag.
This is key because tourists and locals alike are searching for this hashtag in Instagram for new brands to follow, interesting products to check out, and new places to visit. So, try using whatever hashtags are most relevant to your local area to reach customers who might come by for a visit soon.
Use search filters in Twitter
If you choose “Near you” option in Twitter, it will automatically populate what people around you are tweeting about. If you’re a restaurant or a bakery and you happen to see someone in your local area saying they’re hungry — go ahead and reach out to them to start a conversation.
Run a local Instagram or Twitter ad
If you’re trying to reach users in your local area, you can run some paid campaigns in addition to posting organic content to get in front of the people who want or are looking for your products and services at the right time.
In Facebook, you can set up a local ad for Instagram. Then, you can choose which location that ad is served to by using their geotargeting function. Next, your ad will get in front of the people in your target market, in your geographic location, so you are attracting potential customers to your door.
Turn tweets into customers
Twitter is all about building relationships and connecting with people. When you’re tweeting, you want to think about the time of day to reach people when they’re most likely to see your tweet. It’s difficult to nail down which time of day is perfect for each business, so the best thing to do is experiment through trial and error and see which times get the most engagement for your business’ posts.
This salon is being thoughtful about reaching their followers by posting this on a Monday:
They’re kicking off their week, and reminding their followers that they should book a visit to kick of their week the right way.
On Twitter, you want to make sure you’re posting engaging content and varying your content. Try to tweet at least 2–3 times a week — compelling content, great photos, or anything your audience will find usable, enjoyable, or both. They want information that provides value.
For example, you can start to post educational content like tips and tricks. You’re the expert in your business, and sharing your expertise is an effective way to keep your audience coming back for more.
Now that you have great content going out on Twitter, you can start conversations with your community. First, ask, “What is your business’ voice and how can you reflect that on Twitter?” and, “What are your potential customers searching for on Twitter and how can you provide that to them?”
More on turning tweets into customers by starting conversations with new users here!
Here’s an example of how Ocean Sports World, a surf shop located in Cocoa Beach, reached out to a potential customer on Twitter. You’ll see that they don’t immediately go for the sell, and instead try to build a rapport with this Twitter user first. Dawn tweeted a photo at Cocoa Beach, and Ocean Sports World asks about her photo and day on the beach.
Eventually, they get around to asking if Dawn has ever visited their business, and Dawn says she will soon.
Even if this customer doesn’t automatically book an activity, schedule a reservation, or come by this business, through a conversation, Ocean Sports World has spread brand awareness for their business and gotten their brand in front of not only this user, but this user’s followers as well.
And, because they reached out and engaged with a new user, this business will be top-of-mind the next time Dawn or her friends need to swing by a surf shop for some sunscreen or to rent a surfboard in Cocoa Beach.
We hope you enjoyed our tips and that they have inspired you to go out and get engaged with your audience online!
