I’ve been asking all the small business owners I know what their biggest digital marketing need is today — and one of the first things they bring up is social media.
If you’re one of those small business owners, this one’s for you.
Social media is one of the most important pillars of your digital marketing strategy, but you don’t have to be a digital marketer to have a productive social media presence. These are the five steps to effective social media for everyone else.
>1: Build Your Digital Home
From the very beginning, we’ve had the same message for business owners: own, don’t rent.
Social media platforms are “rented” platforms. The platform owns your content, not you. That means you’re at their mercy. They decide how visible you are and what’s allowable to post, and when they change the rules (and they do) you have no recourse.
Good social media starts with your website. You need to build a digital home that you own, not just rent space on Facebook, Instagram or anywhere else. If you’re not sure how to get started building a website, we have a walkthrough of all the essentials here, and you can get all the tools you need to get started at RainmakerPlatform.com.
Then create a content “pillar” that works for your audience: a blog, a podcast or a vlog. You also need distribution. Social media is one part of it, but a newsletter or email list that you own is critical. As social media gets more crowded and Google search becomes less useful, having an audience you can talk to directly matters (and you can use social media to drive people TO that list).
Your digital home should tell people who you are, where you’re located (if you have brick and mortar locations), what you do, what makes you different and what you’re an expert in. That last point is what your blog, podcast or vlog is for. Use it to establish authority and create content you can use on your social media platforms. Build your digital home on your website and only “rent” on social media to expand your audience reach.
>2: Define Your Social Media Persona
Your brand’s social media needs a persona. Look at Wendy’s (snarky, irreverent), REI (conversational, adventurous) or The Jet Business (clear, businesslike, formal).
Consider your audience. Do they communicate formally or informally? What’s their education level? What kind of language do they use — and what kind of language do they expect from their business partners?
You also have to consider the topics they’re looking for information on. For example, at RMDS, we focus on content marketing topics — social media, email, SEO, blogging and other subjects that matter for an audience that wants to do digital marketing.
Your content should feel authentic to both your brand and your audience’s needs. But be careful — one easy novice mistake is oversharing in the name of authenticity. Don’t be too personal, especially if your personal brand is tied to the company. Your brand’s social media persona is made up of the parts of the business your audience will be interested in. No more, no less.
>3: Find Your Audience
The sole reason you use social media for your business is to connect to your audience. You need to figure out who that audience is.
You might be part of the audience already, which makes it a lot easier to get started by conducting “me-search.” Several founders and co-founders of well-known companies fit that description — think Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, Les de Asis of Benchmade or Steve Wozniak of Apple. All of these men created products that they and the other people in their field wanted. They knew their audience intimately already.
Take a look at competitors, too. Who are they reaching? Who are they not reaching? Volkswagen broke into the American market by positioning themselves as a car for the everyman and a pushback against the Detroit auto industry’s maximalism. Streaming service Crunchyroll focused on Japanese animation when competitors were focused on American live action. The coffee and donut chain Dunkin’ reached an audience that thought Starbucks was too expensive or fancy. You can learn a lot by studying what your competitors are doing and either doing what they do better or focusing on an audience they aren’t reaching.
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Finally, go to spaces where that audience hangs out. For example, I do a bit of NBA coverage (specializing in the financial and team-building side, the salary cap). It’s a niche audience — most basketball fans are on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, but salary cap nerds hang out on Twitter (X), Discord servers for salary cap podcasts like Dunc’d On and forums like RealGM. These have the in-depth, nuanced, primarily text discussions that this group gravitates to. If you want to get a sense of an audience, you have to hang out in the spaces they frequent. This is not a Field of Dreams. You can’t build it and expect them to come.
>4: Build Your Platform(s)
Once you know who your audience is, what they’re interested in and how to reach them, your next step is to build your presence on those social media platforms.
Consider two criteria when you’re trying to decide which platforms to use:
- Where is your audience?
- How much time and how many resources can you afford to spend?
Audiences are much less platform-specific than they used to be. There are less platform-specific formats; many brands post the same content across multiple platforms (Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels and TikTok, for example). Keep that in mind if your content or production skills lean to one of the lesser used platforms for your audience. You will still need to be on the primary platform, but you can tweet a link to a video or use a standard brand image on Instagram to drive traffic to a blog.
You only have so much time and so many resources; use them efficiently. Do it right or don’t do it at all. Don’t spread yourself too thin across multiple social media platforms. Only take on as much as you can handle. Don’t “just post” … you have to budget the time to manage, engage and interact with the platform’s community too.
>5: Share Content
Finally — and only after you’ve laid all this groundwork — you’re ready to start sharing content.
Your blog, vlog or podcast is the backbone of your content sharing efforts. Here are some tips on how to use your own content to build your social media presence.
- Create clips of important moments in podcasts or vlogs. As you’re recording or editing, note the time stamps of interesting anecdotes, attention-getting opinions and insightful asides. Then cut them out as separate clips and use them on your social platforms to drive traffic to the whole piece. These will build engagement and drive people to your show. There’s a reason basically every popular podcast does this: it works.
- Republish content in a different format. Have a great blog post? Turn it into a slide deck or a video to be posted on LinkedIn or Facebook. Great podcast? Write down the best quotes and use them as teasers for the full episode on Twitter (X) or an Instagram post.
- Don’t be afraid of zero-click content. We all want people to visit our website, sign up for our email list or click through to the article — that’s our home turf, the place where we can market to them on our own terms. But sharing a whole piece of content instead of just teasing it can be an effective strategy too. Don’t be afraid of posting something that doesn’t lead people off the social platform … play the long game and don’t overvalue clicks.
You should also share content by other people in your community. This may be user-generated content (UGC), like this example from Supergiant Games:
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Or it could be something someone else created that your audience might be interested in, as in this Twitter (X) thread re-shared by SparkToro:
Content marketing of the past:
1. Do keyword research.
2. Create an article for those keywords.
3. Wait and repeat.
4. (Plus link to the article in a tweet and send it to your newsletter.)
Content marketing in 2023:
Spend a little time on your accounts each week checking for shareable content (don’t get sucked in; set a timer if you have to). Sharing good content, whether your own or someone else’s, serves your community. And when you serve your community, you grow.
Start Your Social Media Off Strong
Too many small businesses don’t know how to get started on social media. They treat it as an afterthought, try to post on too many platforms, don’t check where their audience is first or talk in a way that turns off the very people they want to reach.
Don’t be one of them.
Use this primer to start your social media presence off strong. And if you need a hand, we can help. We’ve helped thousands of brands build their social media from scratch. Just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services