Social Media Marketing Tips for Local Businesses in 2020

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!