How to Do Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses

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Marketing is a huge part of running your business, and the internet has become an incredibly powerful tool for marketing.
You can market on a global level by targeting a broad audience. Another option is to target a local area that your business operates in. These require specialized tools, and that is where social media steps in.
With over half the population on social media, it has become a huge resource for leads. Social media allows you to market to a niche audience and engage with individuals personally. This helps build trust and relationships with your customers.
This familiarity that relationships bring is important because it increases your brand awareness. Customers can see your brand name more often and remember it. They also know what to expect from you, making them more likely to buy your products or services.

10 Top Social Media Marketing Strategies for Local Businesses

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1. Onboarding Your Team On Social Media

Social media has changed the world of marketing as we know it. All businesses are on social media, which has helped them expand their reach. This is why you see social media buttons (as shown below) on all business websites these days that help connect with their audience.
And not just that, it has enabled multiple services in one place. With this being the trend, it has almost become mandatory to have a presence on social media.

Tips To Get Your Team On Social Media

Social media is not just useful for the marketing power it offers but also for its flexibility. Businesses help their customers get in touch with them easier through social media.
Having your team on social media can be a huge boost for a local business.
Email as a communication device is being superseded by social messaging.

• Ensure your team is educated on all aspects of social media platforms.
• Train them to use messaging apps like Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers.
• Opting for cross-functional teams on social media is the key to success.

2. Researching The Apt Keyword Profile

Keywords are the foundation of Local SEO and social media platforms as well. It enables businesses to target the right audience for their services accurately.
The key here is to spend enough time to figure out the right keyword profile. It might not be easy to rank for if the keyword is too competitive.
There are several ways to find the appropriate keywords for each social media platform, such as below.

Tools To Help You Find The Right Social Media Keywords

Getting the right keyword profile for your business can be challenging. You need to accurately summarize your services and what you can offer your customers. The current state of the market can also affect your keyword choices. There are tools available that can help you.

• Platforms like Facebook have their own Keyword Research Tools.
• You can also opt for regular tools like Google Analytics or SEMrush.
• Use your discretion when coming up with your keyword profile.

3. Identifying The Right Audience

Social media is a great way to connect with people interested in your products and services. Still, it can also be a great place to get in touch with your ideal customers. This means that you need to identify the target audience of your social media efforts and reach out to them accordingly.
Using Google Analytics, you can find your relevant audience by Gender, interests, age, and more.

Tips And Tools To Find The Right Audience For Your Business

Finding the right audience to post your content is critical to success. You should be able to engage them and pique their interest.
Having the wrong audience can lead to suboptimal social media performance. It can mean your campaign fails even before it has started.

• Ensure everything is on-brand from your end.
• Create accurate buyer personas for your business with Akoonu or Make My Persona.
• Get more audience insights with Sprout Social and Hootsuite.

4. Searching Social Spaces For Opportunities

The social media network is a vast space where innumerable opportunities exist. It can be hard to find the right kind of connections to help you grow your business, especially if you’re just starting. But the good news is that there are many social spaces to check out.
Take a look at the below screenshot. Social media platforms have thousands of groups and pages that allow you to connect with the right audience of your niche.

Using Social Media To Generate Opportunities

With something as integrated as social media, you’ll find people who want to connect with people like you. Many tools help you connect your customers and other business owners. This way, social media provides you with a much more beneficial experience.

• Before searching for opportunities, ensure that your brand image is consolidated.
• Be open to communication - it’s the key to building a business.
• Opt for listening tools like Falcon.io or Awario to get targeted information.

5. Building Relationships Through Engagement

Social media is one of the most effective ways to build relationships with your target audience. If you’re using social media for the right reasons, you’re already building relationships with your audience.

Strategies To Build Relationships On Social Media

The key to building relationships on social media is by engaging your followers, not by pushing content on them. This is where most social media marketers fail.
Take a look at this screenshot of Moz, one of the SEO industry giants, having thousands of customers but still engaging with the audience so patiently.
The most important reason to engage your audience is to get more people to interact with your brand.

• Reach out to people engaging on your posts and connect with them.
• Conduct polls, contests, and other engaging activities on social media.
• Check your engagement numbers periodically with Statusbrew and Agorapulse.

6. Identifying The Right Hashtags

Hashtags have become a critical part of the social media experience. To use hashtags effectively, you need to understand what makes the most sense for your audience. You also need to research the most popular hashtags in your niche. Your hashtags determine the ability of your social feed to attract customers.

Finding The Right Hashtags For Social Media

You can use hashtags to help your tweets reach more people. But there’s a difference between the right hashtags and the wrong ones.
Rather than waste time on effective hashtags, spend time to find the right one. Don’t use random hashtags because they might not have the intended results. Try to use Hashtagify, which provides trending hashtags free of cost.

• Track your hashtags with tools like BrandMentions and BuzzSumo.
• The inbuilt search on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can help.
• Social Searcher is a social media search engine that tracks usernames and hashtags.

7. Creating Curated And Branded Content

As a brand, you’re always looking for ways to increase your social media engagement. One way is to create a strategy for content curation. A good way to explain it is by saying that content curation is when a brand creates content specific to its audience.

Strategies To Create Curated Content

A content marketing strategy that doesn’t incorporate curation and branding is just a waste of time. To build a successful social media strategy, you need to understand how to attract and engage your audience.

• SocialPilot can curate and market all at one place for your brand. They even have a free content and influencer marketing curation option, as in the below image.
  
• Another interesting content curation platform to check out is Quuu.
• Triberr is a way to find groups that are aligned with your niche.

8. Deciding On A Social Calendar

When running a small business, you will need to have a social calendar to succeed. This is one of the most important things you need to do. You can explore more opportunities to market your product or create brand awareness with a social calendar.
Here’s an example of a social calendar post.

You need to keep track of your customers, what they do, and when. If you want to keep your business growing, you need to find out how to make them come back again and again.

Tools For Social Calendar Management

Make a list of the different social media channels you use. Then determine which ones are most likely to be frequented by your target audience.
Next, identify when those times are, and plan around them. This will help you better plan your social media strategy and ensure you maximize your efforts' impact.

• Buffer is perhaps one of the most popular social media calendar apps.
• Simple and powerful ContentCal is the tool of choice for many people.
• Trello is a great tool for organizing and communicating with your team.

9. Creating Visual Content (Video And Images)

As internet speeds have increased, people prefer visual content over text. This is why companies need to create visual deliverables to attract more people.
If you want to get more followers, create photos and videos for your feed. These can be funny, personal, or just visually appealing. Gary Vaynerchuk is the best example of this as he creates content every other day for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many other channels.

Creating Visually Appealing Social Media Content

Video content is one of the most shared on social media platforms today. People respond better to visual content than other types. As a business owner, you need to invest in creating higher-quality visuals for your social media.

• Adobe Creative Suite is the most preferred platform for video editing.
• Design and edit images with Canva, which is easy to use and powerful.
• Shakr is a lot more simple than other video creation tools.

10. Running Regular Audits Of Your Socials

Regular audits of your social media profile are required and necessary. It’s important to monitor your content and posts to make sure they’re performing as well as they can.
If you do not see the results you want, you should spot what’s not working and adjust accordingly.
Here’s a screenshot of the Netflix social media audit showing how much their content and audience are engaging with each other.

Tools And Strategies For Social Media Audit

Keeping your social media account in top shape as a business owner is critical. You can only do this through regular audits. To keep it performing well, you need to have a plan to check it regularly.

• Popular tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and SproutSocial offer audits.
• Crowdfire works well for setting up periodic audits for your campaigns.
• Later is an Instagram exclusive tool for audits.

Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses - FAQs

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Q1. Is Social Media Marketing Still Viable In 2022?

Yes, online marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing. It also scales up according to the demand.

Q2. Does Your Local Business Need Social Media To Be Successful?

When you’re a small business owner, you might feel like social media marketing is optional, but it’s not. People will not spend their money on your product or service if they don’t know who you are.

Q3. Can You Increase Sales With Social Media?

Social media has become part and parcel of marketing today. When you opt for social media marketing, your business can reach more people. This naturally leads to improved business metrics.

Q4. Should You Opt For A Freelancer Or An Agency For Social Marketing?

There are a lot of risks with hiring freelancers, especially for social media marketing. Data could be compromised at their end, leaving you vulnerable. They might also not offer the same flexibility as an agency does.

Key Takeaways

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• Get your team on board with the social media idea.
• Always start with detailed keyword research.
• Connect with businesses and people on social media.
• Leave yourself open to new opportunities online.
• Ensure that you audit your social media profile periodically.
• Implement AI-assisted tools to help you with social marketing.
• Track trends in social media marketing because they are pretty dynamic.
• Schedule your social media content with a calendar.