Marketing your local business can be a resourceful endeavor with big pay-offs. One of the ways to make the most out of your local brand’s health, viability, and continued growth is to use social media.
Social media is a tiny tool with massive reach and a built-in audience. All you have to do is find your target audience within the crowd and understand how they use and consume social media content. By tapping into your local community’s online social activity, you can quickly make your brand known, loved, and trusted, winning the favor of the prospective consumers in your area.
Check out the tips below for getting started on your local business’s social media marketing strategy.
Get to Know Your Audience — Thoroughly
If you can hone in on your audience, you’ll be in great shape to make clear, concise decisions about where to post, what and when to post. Even though you might be thinking that as a local business, you appeal to all locals, your niche consumer is more in-depth than ‘local.’
Allot time to research your industry and competitors; gain a thorough understanding of their consumers, determine which portions of the audience you share. Once you have an idea of who your audience is, you can dive into their interests, their social media preferences and learn more about what they need to see to trust you as their preferred local brand.
Establish and Grow Relationships With Influencers
Local influencers don’t need to have massive social media followings, they only need to have a voice in the community. Working with multiple micro-influencers has a positive ripple effect for generating awareness about your brand. The more corners of your community you can reach through diverse micro-influencers, the better shape you’re in for encouraging all groups within your niche audience to tune into what you have to share.
Use Social Media as a Complement to Your Marketing Campaigns
Social media is the most powerful when used in conjunction with ongoing marketing campaigns and events. If a consumer is exposed to your brand through advertising or word-of-mouth marketing first, they want to be able to come to social media and find your brand to learn more about what you offer.
Conversely, if you promote a campaign on social media, the local community wants to be able to come together to see the event live — this can look like going live on the social media platform, hosting a group video chat via Zoom or House Party, or delivering a short video (15–20 minutes) on the topic of your campaign.
Determine Your Most Suitable Platform(s)
Not all platforms will be your bread and butter. Determine which social media platforms your consumers use and which ones make sense from spreading brand awareness to your target audience. As you identify the best platform to use, begin researching competitor activity, and analyzing the type of content your consumers enjoy.
Offer Your Voice for the Community
Keep a pulse on community ongoings, and take an active part in sharing events, covering news, celebrating local experts and enthusiasts. With your online platform, you can bring voices together in a collaborative experience. Simultaneously, you can build your brand’s locally prominent voice.
Support Other Local Businesses
As a local business, you understand the importance of ongoing support. Embrace your fellow local brands by sharing content and directing consumers to non-competitive category leaders for respective needs. By joining with other local events, shops, and influencers, you can embody the true sense of the local community.
Share Information on Your Industry
Consumers count on media for both entertainment and education. Ideally, you can create content that achieves both. You might also explore sharing the content of two types: content set up to entertain, and content set up to educate. Ask your team what information your brand can share on the products and services you offer — what’s evolving in the industry? How does your product solve a community need? Information on your industry is likely new to consumers, so take advantage of the educational opportunity.
Maintain Brand Voice
Remain consistent with your tone of voice on social media. Depending on which platforms you use, your voice will naturally shift to adapt to be more casual or more serious. However, the underlying tone of your brand should remain detectable. Before posting content, orient yourself to the perspective of the consumer and ensure that the content reflects your brand.
Before You Begin Your Social Media for Local Businesses Strategy
Some strategies are specific to local businesses, while others can be applied to any social media strategy. Below, we’ve outlined general tips to follow for brands of all sizes, industries, and interests. Check them out before getting started with your social media activity.
Social Media Marketing Tips for Local Businesses
- Set clear goals to guide your social strategy
- Launch once you’re prepared to be active
- Assign a daily time commitment for posting and engaging
- Research market and influencers before launching
- Set up a tracking system to collect data on which posts consumers like
- Use your tracked analyses for new decisions
- Continue getting to know your audience by observing consumer engagement
When to Consider Tools
Managing your social media profiles can become laborious — everyday activity requires creativity, consistency, and commitment. It’s easy to push social activity aside when work gets busy — don’t let this happen! Avoid negating your hard work and effort you’ve put into sustaining an online presence by using automation tools to post on your behalf. If you have a bit of budget to invest and predict that running social media will not appropriately fit into your priorities, opting into social media tools is a safe bet for continued social success.
Talk With the Experts
Getting in touch with professional marketers is always a good idea when it comes to setting up your social profile. Allow experts to guide you through the basics and into the depths of making social media work for your local business.
Share Your Tips
Have you started using social media to promote your local company? What efforts have you made that have worked, paid off, and made an impact? Let us know about your experience using social media as a growth platform by leaving a note in the comments below.
Rosy Strategies
Are you ready to make moves on your local business using social media marketing? If so, we’re here to help! Our team at Rosy Strategies can help walk you through the basics of your marketing strategy, how to become proficient and regularly use social media, and equip you with the programs and tools your campaign needs to become successful.
Get in touch with our team today to start learning about the local opportunities your company can capitalize on through the use of social media. We look forward to hearing from you, and getting your brand on social media soon!
