Top 7 Social Media Tips for Your Business
Social media marketing can seem like a daunting task, but it’s vital for every business owner to understand the value of social media for small businesses. Social media is an extremely powerful tool, and it's one that businesses can use to grow their audience and increase exposure – often with little to no cost involved.
Whether you’re an established business with a large following or a startup wondering how to introduce your new business on social media, we’ve provided our top social media tips for 2022 to help you out!
1. Find the Best Time to Post on Social Media
It’s important to post regularly on social media. However, you don’t want to put in a bunch of effort just for your posts to fall on deaf ears. Therefore, you’ll need to determine what times are best for you to post on your channels, which will largely be dependent upon when your target audience is online.
There are several tools out there that can help you with this. For example, Buffer offers a feature called “Buffer Planner” that analyzes historical data for your page and recommends the best times for you to share content.
Sprout Social is another tool that provides analytics across all of your social media channels. It can help you see how well your posts are performing at a glance.
You can also make use of each social media platform’s built-in analytic tools. These are free to use and are available to business accounts. Pay attention to what days and times of the day provide you with the highest engagement, including views, likes, and comments.
2. Make Use of Social Media Templates
If you’ve ever wondered how to promote your business on social media for free, BeFunky’s wide range of social media templates is a great place to start.
There are many different types of social media templates you can use. BeFunky’s Template Library features predesigned templates for everything from Facebook posts and Instagram Story templates, to Twitter posts, Facebook cover images, Instagram posts, Pinterest graphics, and more.
Templates are a great way to save time, and they also ensure that your content is consistent. All you have to do is select a design you like, then swap out the existing text, imagery, or color palette to suit your own brand. How much – or how little – you customize each template is completely up to you!
You can even resize your chosen template to be used across different formats or social media platforms–all within a click.
BeFunky also has a mobile app that allows you to design your social media graphics or edit photos on the go. You can then post your content directly to social media from the app, saving you a whole lot of time and effort.
3. Create a Content Calendar and Schedule Posts
To get the most out of your social media channels, you need to stay on top of what's happening in your industry and be posting content that your followers are interested in. To help you manage your upcoming content and content ideas, you can create a content calendar.
A social media content calendar is a chronological list of your upcoming social media activity. This assists you with planning posts, as well as managing your campaigns, and evaluating your current social media strategies. It also allows you to ensure you’re posting a variety of content that your audience loves the most, rather than sticking to the same old thing.
You can set up your content calendar using Google Sheets, for example, or even using a physical planner. Whatever works best for you!
You may also find it helpful to use an app like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts in advance, so you don't forget important dates (for example, National Donut Day if your business sells donuts) or miss the opportunity for sharing relevant content from others (such as customer reviews).
4. Focus on the Platforms Best for Your Brand
It can seem as though a new social media platform takes over each year. However, you should never feel pressured to have a presence on every single channel available to you.
When it comes to choosing the right platform for your brand, you'll want to start by focusing on two things: the platforms where your audience is, and which ones are best suited for your business.
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in particular offer many creative ways to promote your business on social media. The beauty of these platforms is that they also offer their own diverse features which make them unique from others.
For example, Twitter allows users to post short bursts of text known as "tweets." This makes it a great channel for posting quick updates or special offers from your business.
Instagram is a very visual platform that’s perfect for posting photos and videos that offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your business.
Facebook, on the other hand, is the largest social media platform on the planet, making it a great place to connect with your audience. You can also use it as an opportunity to post longer content, such as blog posts or videos that you've created.
Finally, Pinterest is a great place to create boards based on what kind of products or services you offer. For example, if you're an interior designer who likes to share before-and-after pictures of spaces they've worked on (or even just cool home décor ideas), this could be a good channel for that.
5. Poll Your Audience for Valuable Feedback
Polling your audience is a great way to get feedback and determine what content they like most. You can easily find options to poll your audience on Instagram (with the Stories feature), as well as Facebook and Twitter. In this example, we’ve tweaked one of BeFunky’s pre-made Instagram Story templates to act as an eye-catching background to our poll.
The results from these polls are extremely valuable because they help you to identify which topics resonate most with your followers – and therefore where you should focus most of your efforts in order to drive engagement.
If you want to ask your audience questions that require a more in-depth answer, try creating a survey instead. You can use Google Forms to create a free survey and share the link to it with your audience via your social media platforms. To encourage participation, provide a discount code or other special offer to those who complete it.
6. Keep Your Profile Cohesive With Your Branding
One of the most important things to consider when making your social media accounts is that these profiles are extensions of your brand. That means they should be cohesive with each other, as well as the rest of your marketing materials.
That's why it's so important to use consistent branding elements across each of your platforms, including a logo, color palette, tagline, and fonts that match those used on your website or with in-store branding.
You’ll also want to ensure your business’s key information remains updated and consistent across each platform. This includes your social media usernames, as well as your business address (if you have one), website URL, and contact information.
7. Engage With Your Followers Regularly
You should also be responsive to comments, questions, and feedback from your followers. This helps build trust with your audience and shows them that you're listening. It's also important to respond quickly whenever possible, so as not to lose the conversation or miss an opportunity for engagement.
You can also like and comment on their own posts and images to add a more human element to your brand. Don’t forget to ask them questions about their experience with your product or service too, as this gives you a great opportunity to collect relevant testimonials and boost your own brand awareness and credibility.
Social Media Marketing Just Got a Whole Lot Easier
If you’re looking to boost your business’s social media presence in 2022, these tips are a great place to start. Remember, social media marketing doesn’t have to be difficult, nor should it break your small business’s budget.
With plenty of free or affordable tools available, such as BeFunky’s wide range of free social media templates, creating a successful social media presence is easy. Go on, check out the Graphic Designer today to find the perfect templates for your brand!
