Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses 

If you’re a small business owner, chances are you’re already using some level of social media marketing to promote your business. In fact, over 80% of small business owners have used at least one social media channel such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to grow their business.

While majority of small business owners are using social media, only 30% of active small businesses see positive results from their social media marketing efforts. Why do majority of small businesses fail with their social media strategy?

Let’s take a closer look at top 5 reasons we think so many small businesses out there are struggling in their social media marketing.

# Social media strategy (or lack thereof)

Social media success is not pure luck. Just like any other marketing campaign, it requires a meaningful and effective strategy. Many small businesses fail in social media because they fail to understand social channels and their proper use such marketing and a customer service.

Constantly posting on social media channels such as Facebook isn’t going to do any good unless you’re able to have a meaningful dialogue with your audience and generate authentic conversations. Even businesses with decent amount of fans, like, or followers, often fail to understand this part.

In order to derive measurable gains from your social media marketing efforts, define your goals, identify social media channels that make most sense and then engage your audience.

# Non-existent Content Strategy

Constantly telling people that you’re open for business isn’t content. In addition, special offers don’t qualify as content. Authentic content is engaging, entertaining and useful to your audience. Too many small businesses use social media only to advertise sales because that’s all they have time to do, and their audience ignores them. Also, don’t keep yelling "Buy our stuff!" The general rule of thumb is 9/1. Ninety percent of your social media content should be sharing useful articles, answering questions and other people's content, and only 10 percent should be self promotion. While that's not a hard and fast rule, most people aren’t going to stick around if the only content they see is constant self promotion all the time.

# No Owned Digital Content

No matter how well you manage your Facebook page, it is still rented real estate. Social media is not owned content like your website is. A business that completely ignores its owned content in favor of social media is bound to fail. Remember social channels control access to your content so they can run advertisements and pay their bills. For example, organic reach on Facebook, the potential visibility of posts made by a business or organization account without any paid boosts, has been declining steadily for years now and this trend isn’t going to change anytime soon. Any small business relying on organic Facebook reach without any owned content is not going to make it in long-run. In order to get most out of your social media marketing efforts, you must have your own digital space (a.k.a. website) to take the next level of trust with your customers.

# No Budget

One of the biggest false assumptions about using social media for marketing is that it doesn’t cost money and it’s fast. A significant number of small business owners still think that all they need to do is post something on social media and everyone in the neighborhood will magically be notified. Like it or not, social media is “pay-to-play” game now. Any business that isn’t spending money on paid advertisement, is unlikely to see any measurable return on their social media efforts.

# Lack of Ownership

Most small businesses have no clearly defined ownership when it comes to social media. Their typical approach is that whoever has time should post “every once in a while.” In addition, there is no content development plan, no research about what their audience is looking for. If it’s everyone’s responsibility to post to Facebook, no one will. There must be a single responsible person to manage social media posting, with help from others in content development. If you do not have in-house resources, it is probably cheaper to hire an outside agency to manage your social media footprint.

A social media agency can greatly improve the quality of your social media planning and strategy. their experience should help with more efficient campaign execution, cost saving and higher return on your investment.