Social Media Strategies for Local Businesses

Social Media Strategies for Local Businesses If you’re one of the many local businesses overlooking social media strategies to build your business and gain customer awareness — read this post now!

Social media can be overlooked when you get caught up in all your daily tasks. Especially if you’re a local business with several projects on your plate. It’s important to remember that social media is extremely valuable for any business and does have an impact on your businesses success.

If you don’t know where to start or need new need ideas, this post is going to go over some of the social media strategies that will benefit your local business.

Check-In

One of the many benefits of being a local business is being able to leverage social media “check-ins”.

Encourage your customers to check-in on your social media platforms. You can do this by providing incentives including a discount, access to Wi-Fi or an upgrade. Customers checking-in to your account will build your credibility and will increase brand awareness. For example, after customers check-in to Facebook, a notification will follow-up inviting them to post a review. It is likely they will post a positive one, considering users won’t share a check-in they’re not happy about.

Yelp is also a great way to entice new customers. Similar to Facebook, users can check-in and write a review. If customers are ever looking for a service related to your business, they are more likely going to pick you, if your reviews are better than your competitors. Another great way to utilize a check-in is through Instagram. Users can post a story with an image of your business and include tags pointing to you and your location. This can grab the attention of their followers, while also being posted as a story within Instagram’s location story. This allows users to view stories within their area, which gives you more exposure.

Always do your best to respond to reviews as well, which leads to my next tip.

Monitor and Respond

When customers post reviews, make sure to respond to the good and the bad.

This lets your customers know you appreciate them taking the time to review your business and gives you an opportunity to either build or mend a relationship with them. Aside from reviews, it’s also important to monitor and respond to any conversations regarding your business. This means responding to comments on your social feed, responding to direct messages and commenting on tags pointing to your business. Engagement is crucial if you want a good customer retention rate.

By responding to comments and concerns, customers will become loyal to your business.

Video Content

If you’re not utilizing video content, you’re doing it wrong.

Video marketing can help humanize your brand and create stronger relationships between you and your customers. It is one of the best ways to evoke emotions which will positively impact consumer purchasing decisions.

Not to mention, 64 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

There are many different approaches to video marketing this includes: tutorials, expert interviews, customer testimonials, live videos and more. The content you create will be based on what goals you want to reach. As a small business, you can’t cater to everyone, having a target audience is going to help you reach the right people. The best part is how easy it is to cross-share video content on different social platforms.

Schedule Content

Being active on social media is just as important to monitoring and responding.

As a local business, posting every day might be a challenge which is why you should consider scheduling your social media posts in advance. The best way to do this is by either creating a calendar with a draft of what you’re going to post to which platform or you can purchase a service such as Sprout Social or Hootsuite. A social media scheduling service can manage multiple platforms at once and schedule your posts for you. It’s also something to consider if you want a service that will provide you insight on your analytics.

Marketing your local business is no easy task… don’t overlook the importance of social media strategies to deliver a better brand experience to your customer.

Having a social media presence for your local business will increase engagement, brand awareness and traffic. Use social media as an opportunity for your local business to reach consumers around you. It is also one of the most cost-efficient strategies to utilize. If you haven’t already, start creating your social media profiles and implement these strategies!

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by Chris London of Pixel Productions Inc. The Everything Design Company