You have a small business, and as a business owner, you know that you should be using social media. But the question is why.

It’s time for a pop quiz!

Why should you incorporate social media as a part of your marketing strategy?

1. Everyone else is using it.

2. My favorite celebrity may retweet one of our tweets.

3. To create a mini-feed about our company including sales, news, announcements and promotions.

4. Fear of missing out!

5. None of the above.

I know some of these seem a little right, but the correct answer is “5. None of the above.”

This is because social media should actually be used as a tool to help you achieve your overall business goals.

Now that you know the why, here are a few tips and tools on how to leverage social media for your business.

Tip 1: Align your social media efforts with your business objectives

Every business owner should identify business goals and objectives that he or she would like the business to achieve. And with that, all of your social media efforts (as with all of your other marketing efforts) should help you achieve your business goals. Fortunately, almost every type of social media activity can be directly aligned with a specific type of business goal. In the illustrative chart below, you will see several types of business objectives with aligning social media strategies and activities. It also includes the corresponding key performance indicators (KPI) that will help you measure the success of your social media efforts.

Tip 2: Don’t just post about your company

The most engaging social media accounts are not just self-promotional digests. They are often informational, timely, entertaining, inspiring, thought-provoking and often offer a sense of community. They provide variety and garner engagement.

To ensure that you are providing variety, try the 5-3-2 rule. This means that out of every 10 social media posts, 5 should be shares from content other sources, 3 should be self-promotional and 2 can be personal, entertaining or inspirational like a quote.

Need post ideas? Here are some content ideas that are not self-promotional in nature:

• Trending topics

• News coverage and other links about topics related to your work

• Sharing content and posts from other influencers in your field

• Opportunities for followers such as job postings, grants, conferences, etc.

• Your favorite quotes. (Quotes are highly resharable!)

• Thought-provoking questions, for example:

  • Tell us about a time that you…

  • What is your favorite book for inspiration?

  • What did you learn this week?

• Compelling videos, GIFs or visual infographics

• Polls and surveys

Tip 3: Get visual!

We live in a digital age in which people consume information in bite-sized nuggets. People are used to reading short text messages and tweets and consume news in 2-minute bites. As a result, some studies show that attentions spans have gotten shorter. In fact, a 2015 Microsoft study claims that the human attention span has declined from an average of 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds. Although, there has been some debate about this study, one thing is for sure: we are consuming a lot more content than we ever have before.

To beat the competition at winning your customers’ attention, make sure your copy is short yet compelling and that you are including appealing visuals and videos. In the graphic below, you will see why including engaging visuals is important.

See that? A whopping 90% of the information we consume is visual, and our brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text! Unbelievable, right?!

To infuse more videos, photos and graphics into your social media content, try some of these great tools:

• Canva – for social media posts and banners

• Unsplash – great sites for free photos

• Pexels – great sites for free photos

• Infogram – tool for developing infographics and charts

• Adobe Photoshop Express – mobile app to edit photos

• Google Snapseed – tool to edit photos

Tip 4: Try Facebook Ads

Facebook has made it difficult to achieve organic visibility on unpaid posts. For posts to get strong engagement, you will have to invest money in them. Facebook ads are some of the most powerful types of advertising because Facebook allows you to select and refine which of the 2.6 billion monthly active Facebook users see your ads. This is because people volunteer a great deal of information about themselves to Facebook: where they live, their interests, their birthdays, their current and former employers, and on and on. The ability to refine at this level of specificity means you are more likely to reach your target audience.

In addition, Facebook offers fantastic analytics and tracking and built-in tools to help with remarketing. Remarketing allows you to target your ads to people who have already visited your website. They are clearly already interested in your business, and through remarketing, you are likely to convert some of them by reaching them again.

Given all this and the relatively low cost of Facebook ads, it is totally worth a try!

I know what you are thinking. Don’t be scared! Like anything else, running a successful Facebook ad campaign is going to require trial and error. Just invest a little bit of money to start. If it isn’t going well, you can always cancel and adjust your campaign. But for the fairly low cost and the potential benefits, don’t miss out at the chance to reach your target market.

Tip 5: Treat social media as another customer service platform

Have you ever seen (or even experienced) a customer offering feedback about their experience with a business? Did the business respond? If not, they should have, because according to HubSpot, 59% of global social media users have a more favorable view of brands that respond to customer service questions and feedback on social media.

Here are tips on how you can respond to positive feedback:

• With gratitude

• Include staff person’s name in the response

• Pitch another service

• Compliment the customer

• Ask them to spread the word

• End on a positive note

Easy enough, right? Now, here is the uncomfortable part: responding to negative feedback. There is a wrong way and a right way to respond to negative feedback. Remember, your followers are watching. They are going to see how honestly and compassionately you respond. Here are tips for the right way to respond to negative feedback.

• Apologize

• Respond promptly. Most customers expect a response in 60 minutes day and night!

• Be honest and admit wrong

• Respond publicly…and then follow up privately

• Offer a solution

• End on a positive note

I hope these tips improve your efforts on social media. Happy Posting!