Social Media: 10 top tips to help you get started 

 

One thing a business can’t avoid anymore these days is a social media presence. Whether you are a small business or a multi-million turnover company, social media should be a part of your marketing strategy. 

 

There are many benefits to having one. It helps you to connect with your clients and customers, increase brand awareness and ultimately boost leads and sales. Joining the social media world opens you up to a huge audience and the many opportunities it comes with. 

 

If you are willing to get started and are a bit scared to enter this highly competitive world, here are our ten top tips to put you on the right track. 

 

1/ Always start with a plan 

 

The first step anyone should take before doing any activity on social media is making a plan. Without one, you don’t have any clear goal of what you want to achieve and what you want to get from having a social media presence. So set some goals and objectives, research your competition, get inspiration. 

 

2/ Define your audience 

 

Your strategy won’t be complete until you know exactly who your audience is. Look into all the data that you have and see who’s buying from you, who’s interacting with your brand, their age, their interests, where they live, their consumption habits. Once you have gathered this information, build personas – 2 or 3 will suffice. You’ll then have the typical customers that you want to target with your social media strategy. 

 

3/ Choose your platforms 

 

Don’t jump into every single platform that exists. Now that you know your audience and your goals, you can then decide which platform will fit perfectly with your strategy. Look at what your personas do on social media, which platform they use and how they interact with each of them. Only then can you decide which to go for. 

 

4/ Define a content strategy 

 

Now that you know where you’re going to post, you need to decide what type of content you will put out on each platform and when. There’s a rule that you should follow: 80% of your content should be focused on informing, educating, or entertaining your audience, and the other 20% on promoting your brand or selling your products. You don’t want to oversell what you do and scare the leads away. Also remember to mix up your formats – blogs, images, videos… And take advantage of all the tools that are available on each platform such as stories or reels for example. And always add a call to action at the end of your posts! You want your audience to interact with you. 

 

5/ Always quality over quantity 

 

You can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t do it all. You can’t post ten times a day on five different platforms. To start with, focus on two channels, post regular content that is relevant, great and unique to your audience. Be honest and transparent in what you do. Your audience will thank you for it in the long run. 

 

5/ Interact with your audience 

 

Posting is a great first step but never forget to also dedicate some time to interact with your audience directly. This is the great thing about social media: your audience is there on your doorstep to talk to you. Follow accounts that are relevant, comment and like posts, respond to all enquiries that come through. Relationships and good customer relationships are everything! 

 

6/ Follow the trends 

 

Don’t jump into all the latest trends and viral posts. Follow the trends to understand what works and what your audience is after and act accordingly. 

 

7/ Use social commerce 

 

If you are a commercial brand, look into setting a shop where it’s possible such as Instagram and Facebook. More and more people are now buying via these shops. It removes an extra step for the customer as they don’t have to redirect to the website. That is a huge benefit for many. 

 

8/ Use the right tools 

 

To be efficient and effective, look into the tools that will make your life easier. Get one that will automate your posting so you don’t have to get up at 6 in the morning to have your post ready. Use tools such as Canva if you don’t have the resources to create great, impactful visuals. There are a lot of great templates there to get you started. 

 

9/ Track and analyse your performance 

 

Use analytics tools as much as you can and build up reports monthly or even weekly if you have the time. Look at what worked in terms of content, time of posting, which platform seems to bring you the most leads, have you reached the goals you set? What can you do to be better next month? Another good tool is to use A/B testing to test a post. Change the call to action, change the visual, and see what works best! 

 

10/ Don’t be afraid 

 

Our last advice is to not get scared! It might seem like a crazy world, but if you are prepared, do the research properly and learn from your actions, there’s no reason why you won’t smash it! 

You can get more advice on using social media for business here and here!

If you have an accountant, they should be your first stop for business advice. If you don’t have an accountant or they can’t help, BuBul has a wide range of experts available. For more advice, why not contact our expert* Fiona on LinkedIn?

*We’ve picked experts we know and trust who are good at what they do. All of them will give you at least an extra 30 minutes free advice if you contact them and would then charge their normal prices. They don’t pay to be on BuBul and don’t give us any money from anything they earn as an expert.