4 Social Media Tips to Grow Your Business

There are endless blogs about how to grow your business with social media. From algorithm hacks, to the fool-proof formula for going viral, there’s a lot of misinformation and conflicting advice out there. That’s what I’d like to change. 

As a marketing professional, I want to teach small business owners (that’s you!) how to utilize social media for their business, without constantly brainstorming new content ideas or stressing over daily content creation.

I believe that social media doesn’t have to be a chore, and with the right strategy and organization you can find joy and ease in using social media to grow your business. Utilizing a content calendar and batch creating your content are easy ways to simplify your social media marketing, and I’ll touch on them below.

Building an engaged and loyal social media audience is invaluable when it comes to selling your services or products, and you’d be surprised at the results a business can have with a modest following.

But you’ve got to build an audience with intention and strategy, which can be challening for the average business owner with limited marketing know-how. That’s where I’ve got you covered!

These 4 tips on how to grow your business with social media are essential to build a solid foundation and set up the framework for straightforward, successful social media marketing. 

Get to know your target audience

You need to be crystal clear on who your target audience is so you can create highly emotive content that deeply connects with them.

What does your audience want to achieve, what are their goals? How do they want to feel when they achieve their goals? What are their big dreams, their fears, their irritating roadblocks they struggle with?

I like to keep negative language out of copy, but it’s essential you know their struggles so you can create content that shows them you understand them, and know exactly how to solve their problems.

Create valuable content

Don’t worry about going viral (please, it’s a waste of time). Instead, focus on creating content that is highly valuable for your audience.

Your content should offer advice for key problems, entertain them with relevant humour and insights, inspire and empower them with success stories, and help them connect with you, the helpful human offering your expertise and knowledge to your audience.

Focus on what will be the most impactful for your audience, versus what you think will get the most views.

Be yourself

There is nothing worse than seeing the same piece of content 15 times because it’s trending and everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Mindlessly chasing trends doesn’t help you build an engaged audience who trust you and want to buy from you.

Showing up as your weird and wonderful self is the best way to stand out amongst the sea of repetitive dancing videos, and showcases your unique personality and insights. People love to follow accounts run by real-life messy humans, who show up authentically and with passion.

By all means, use trends that are on-brand and work for your personality, but remember to be yourself above all. It can be scary to be vulnerable and relaxed on social media, but trust me the more yourself you are, the more people will flock to you and, ultimately, the easier creating content will become. 

Post consistently

This one is key. Daily posting for small businesses often isn’t realistic, and honestly, it’s not essential. Posting 3-5 times a week is more than enough, when paired with social engagement (likes, comments and messages with your audience) for at least 15 minutes a day.

You can batch create your content once a month using a content calendar and schedule everything out ahead of time, so that day to day social engagement is all that’s needed to keep your social media accounts active. 

I’ve seen these foundational tips completely change a business’ social media presence and reach, time and time again. The key to growing your business with social media is to show up with passion, genuinely care about your audience, and create content that truly helps them. 

Start implementing these tips and watch your social media community flourish.