In the first post in our marketing roadmap series, you will learn how to use social media to grow your small business online. Are you ready to harness the power of social platforms to raise your brand profile, boost traffic to your website, and sell more of your products/services?
If so, here’s a brief overview of what you will learn in each section:
In the first two sections, we help you establish your unique voice and create engaging social media content: meaning you can better connect with and grow your audience.
Let’s hop to it!
If you’ve never heard the terms, you will have come across the concepts online, even without knowing them. But defining both brand voice and brand tone will help you develop a better understanding. Let’s start with a clear definition of each.
Your brand voice is the content of what you say online.In contrast, the tone is how you express your voice.
Now we’ve defined our terms, let's look at why they matter to your business.
Developing a unique yet consistent voice and tone sets your business apart in the sea of social media while painting an explicit and authentic picture of your brand. A clear voice will help you to attract your ideal customer because they resonate with your content.
Also,few things aremore confusing to social media browsersthan a brand whose content is all over the map. People can tell when there is no cohesive voice or tone, and it can be jarring at best and off-putting at worst.
If you outsource your social media content creation and posting, you will undoubtedly need to establish clear guidelines in these areas. Because how can a freelancer, employee, or even you as the owner, authentically represent your brand online if you’ve never gotten clear about your voice and tone?
There are a few methods worth exploring to create your company voice and tone. First, we explain the techniques and then share tips on using them in the next section.
Here’s a top tip: Language, vocabulary, specific phrases, and branded imagery are all extensions and ways to express your brand's voice.
(1) If you sell outdoor equipment, your audience will likely enjoy outdoor pursuits and be a little more adventurous than the average bear. What tone do you feel would resonate with them while still maintaining your authenticity? They may appreciate a bold and direct voice that speaks to their sense of adventure. And welcome the specific phrases and language used by people with the same interests as them.
(2) If delivering excellent customer service is one of your core values, think about the customer service best practices you encourage in a real-life setting. Can you integrate these into how your brand communicates, presents itself, and solves customer queries via social media?
For example, you will always aim to solve a question within a set time frame as an extension of your values (2) and adopt a welcoming and empathetic tone because that’s your brand’s personality (3).
(4) If excellent customer service is a core value, you will also likely want your audience to feel heard and like they genuinely matter. So engage with your audience, ask them questions, and respond to queries or comments in a way that translates ‘active listening’ into a digital medium.
Here’s a top tip: Once you have decided the right voice and tone for your venture, put together a set of clear brand guidelines. This means that everyone is on the same page while representing your business on social media.
While developing a unique voice and tone is specific to individual businesses, there are certain best practices that any brand can utilize to createengaging social media content.
Many brands see social media platforms purely as a means to promote themselves. And while this is part of doing business online, it’s not the only or even the most crucial aspect.
Think of it this way, if you were at a dinner party, would you warm to and remember:
a) the person talking only about themselves and what they had to offer
b) or the guest who took the time to ask about and learn about you in a meaningful way
The chances are you answered b, huh? Simply put, your content and time on social media should be more about your audience and less about your business.
Here’s a top tip: build a connectionwith your audience by engaging with and responding when they comment on your posts.
Your content and time on social media should be around 80% customer-focused content to 20% selling or promotion.
Here are some questions to consider:
The takeaway: don’t just sell, sell, sell all day, every day. Have fun and be human while considering your voice and tone.
Here are some top tips: when it comes to crafting copy for social media, keeping it short, sweet, valuable, and to the point generally works best.
Think of your captions like a newspaper; you want the headline/primary information to appear first to attract attention.
Although, every platform has different character limits and ‘ideal’ caption lengths. We will cover these when we examine Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
One of the best ways to create engaging content and stand out on crowded social media platforms is to use visual content (branded images, infographics, videos, gifs, etc.) alongside your captions.
Don’t just take our word for it. Check out a few interesting statistics collated and shared by HubSpot.
“Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. (Buzzsumo)”
“When people hear information, they're likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Brain Rules)”
“Across social channels, photo and imagery posts are the most-used content type to increase audience engagement.” (HubSpot, 2020)
The takeaway: social media posts accompanied by visual content generally outperform those without imagery.
Because of the demand for visual content on social media, many people (including ourselves and our excellent independent designers) have developed products to help you produce DIY social media graphics for your business.
Polite disclaimer: it’s time for a wee plug of some of our products :)
We recently introduced our Photoshop alternative, DesignScape, which you can access for free when you become a Gold Plus Member.
Depending on your membership, you can also access over 90,000 design assets licensed for commercial use. Meaning you can use our online editing software (featuring pre-sized templates for social media) and graphics to produce visual content. Or use DesignScape to add a professional finish to your existing business photos.
P.s. Even if you’re not a DesignBundles member, you can access premium and free social media templates and license-free photos to use in tandem with other digital editing software.
We also recommend GoogleDocs to write your social media captions in advance and Grammarly to fix any spelling or grammar issues. If you want to get an idea of how your post will look, insert your visual content into the GoogleDoc beneath the text.
If you do this in advance, you can sort the running order and delegate the task of scheduling the content in advance.* Or if someone else has created content for your business, you can use GoogleDocs to edit the text directly, suggest edits and change the running order if necessary.
*more on that later!
Now we’ve covered brand voice and tone and how to create engaging content for social media, it’s time for a deep dive into Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for business. After which, you will feel empowered to choose the best platform for your business and schedule.
This section will introduce four platforms with insights to help beginners and more advanced social media users alike. We have chosen Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn because they are popular, have established audiences, and you can use them in different ways to suit your small business.
When it comes to social media, it can feel like there is never enough time in the day, especially when you already have your hands full with other areas of your business. The good news is you can still be active on social media even if you’re short on time.
Here’s a top tip: it’s always better to do one or two platforms well, rather than try to do ALL of them poorly because you’re trying to cover all bases. So, you need to identify which social media platforms are the best fit for your business needs, industry, business model, and time frame.
We will share the following information for each platform:
Followed by practical information to help when it comes to posting, including:
*These are general recommendations. You will get a much better idea of the best times, days, and frequency for your specific business and audience when you implement your social media strategy.
Twitter is a microblogging and social media network in which users post messages, aka ‘Tweets’ in a public setting. One of the most attractive things about the platform for Twitter users is that they can spark conversations with celebrities or influential people, businesses like yours, and other people who have similar interests to themselves.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter Inc, stated that:
“Technology to me does two things: it increases the velocity of communication and increases the number of people who can participate. That's it. That's really all technology for our entire history has ever done.”
And Twitter has (for the most part) accomplished just that.
Twitter has around 187 million daily users, and the most represented age group is between 30 to 49 years old. The platform has 32% female users compared to 68% male, and people spend just under 4 minutes per session on Twitter.
The short average session times and word count restrictions (more on that later) make it a platform to drop in and out of quickly. Meaning you can get the scoop on breaking news and find and solve customer queries quickly. But your posts might get lost in the shuffle because of the fast-moving nature of the Twitter news feed.
One of Twitter’s best features is that it’s easy to identify and connect with your ideal audience based on the topics and interests they follow on the platform. In Jack Dorsey’s own words:
“I'm less interested in how people are following each other and more interested in how they are following topics and tweets themselves. People are following more keywords and concepts and more ideas and acting on those rather than individuals or organizations.”
In that respect, Twitter suits pretty much any industry providing your audience frequents the platform. According to Twitter’s 2021 trends report:
"People come to Twitter to talk about the things that matter to them. Entertainment, news, sports, fashion - it’s all here..."
The report also highlights more specific “big trends” with wellbeing, creator culture, sustainability, and tech included.
It’s essential to consider the following when deciding whether Twitter is the right social platform for your business and schedule:
If you’ve decided that Twitter is a good fit for your schedule, industry, and business model, here are some ways you can get the most out of your precious time on the platform.
While hashtags aren’t suitable for every platform, they are right for Twitter. Using hashtags, you can connect with people outside of your existing followers interested in the type of conversations that relate to your products or services.
So if you are a brand with sustainability at the forefront of your mission, discuss this topic in a tweet and use hashtags like #sustainability or #green to connect with new people with this shared interest.
Tweets with hashtags generally receive more engagement than those without, but it’s all about balance. Don’t be too heavy-handed with your hashtags. Stick to a maximum of two, and layout your tweets in the following order:
Twitter has a short character limit (280) compared to other platforms. And according to Sprout Social, Tweets are best received when they have 71-100 characters, making sense because the Twitter feed moves so fast. So be short, sweet, and to the point.
Businesses are best to tweet between 3 to 7 times a day: which is just enough to stay at the forefront of people’s minds, but not enough to become a frustrating part of the Twitter feed.
As you begin to Tweet more, you’ll get a clearer picture of when your audience is generally active. However, here’s a general guide to follow in the first instance:
Struggling with Tweet ideas? Here are some suggestions to get you started:
Facebook is an established social media platform in which users can sign-up for free and create profiles or pages. Users connect with coworkers, family, friends, and acquaintances. You can share other people’s posts publicly or create your own from scratch and message people privately.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, Inc:
“The question isn't, 'What do we want to know about people?' It's, 'What do people want to tell about themselves?”
And Facebook provides the platform for people to do just that.
Facebook is one of the most established and popular social media platforms with a massive 2.7 billion active monthly users. Although the most represented age group (at 26.3%) is aged 25 to 34, Facebook has a wide range of users from all age groups.
Facebook also has an equal(ish) ratio of female and male users, at 44% and 56%, respectively, than other platforms. In general, Facebook users spend around 38 minutes per day on the platform: suggesting that people go to Facebook to browse for more extended periods.
If you’re struggling with time constraints and need a platform that can serve many functions or industries without too much thought, Facebook is the social media for you. One of the key attractions of Facebook for business purposes is that so many people from all backgrounds, age groups, and varying interests have profiles.
Here are some more considerations about Facebook:
The takeaway: Facebook is a good choice for most business industries and models as it’s relatively low maintenance and widely used.
If you’ve decided that Facebook is a good fit for your schedule, industry, and business model, here are some ways you can get the most out of your precious time on the platform.
You can use hashtags within your Facebook posts; however, they have minimal effect on the success of your content. Instead, consider browsing relevant hashtags (aka topics that your customer base is generally interested in) using the search bar on Facebook to engage in existing conversations and connect with new people.
The character restrictions on Facebook posts (up to 63,206) are far more generous than other platforms. However, like Twitter, shorter posts tend to perform better, so it’s wise to keep things engaging and concise.
Keep your updates between 40 to 80 characters, and remember that, in general, posts with 80 characters or under, earning around 88% more engagement than longer posts.
If you’re choosing to use Facebook Ads, keep your headlines to around five words.
As the Facebook newsfeed moves much slower than other social media platforms, it’s better to post less: especially compared to Twitter. Most experts recommend posting once a day for Facebook, with the maximum being twice. Try posting at least three times per week. And if you run a Facebook group, engage with the group daily.
Try posting on Facebook at 9 am or 8 pm, as these are popular times for people to check in with the platform. If you don’t want to get too specific, a general rule of thumb is either in the morning or around dinner time.
The best days tend to be Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So if you’re aiming for a minimum of 3 posts per week, consider a 9 am post on a Wednesday, an 8 pm post on a Thursday, and a 9 am post on a Friday.
Struggling with Facebook post ideas? Here are some suggestions to get you started:
Instagram is a social media platform where people share visuals like photos and videos alongside written content. Unlike other platforms, you can’t share posts on Instagram without including some visuals in your content. Instagram users engage with content by liking, commenting, and sharing.
According to Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger:
“People want to share photos with only their friends and loved ones.”
And fulfilling this need is why Mike Krieger created Instagram and why it has people flocking to the platform in droves.
Instagram has around 1 billion users, with the largest age group represented (at 33.1%) being people aged 25 to 34. However, like Facebook, Instagram generally has high numbers of people using the app from all age groups.
Instagram has a slighter higher female-to-male ratio at 57% and 43%, respectively. On average, Instagram users spend about 29 minutes a day on the platform. Fashion, food, design, travel, fitness, nature, health, art, and general inspiration tend to be popular topics on Instagram.
After Facebook, Instagram boasts the second most significant number of social media users. So like Facebook, it’s worth considering if you want to reach a wide range of people with different backgrounds, interests, and age groups or a super niche audience.
However, unlike Facebook, Instagram requires visual content, making it more time-consuming to produce content. But if your brand relates to the favored topics above (fashion, food, art, etc.), it is well worth the effort.
Here are some more considerations about Instagram:
If you’ve decided that Instagram is a good fit for your schedule, industry, and business model, here are some ways you can get the most out of your precious time on the platform.
While there’s no debate that you should use hashtags in your Instagram posts, there is some contention as to the ideal number. You can use up to 30 hashtags on a regular post, and some people say to use all of them, whereas others say to use five.
11 is the number that comes up most in terms of the ideal number of hashtags to use on an Instagram post. It is a good base level to start with, and you should see your posts experience more engagement. If you have the time, try experimenting with more hashtags and see how this affects your overall post engagements (likes/comments) and audience growth.
To make hashtags seem less spammy, you can place them in the first comment of your post. Like Twitter, use hashtags related to topics and interests relevant to your post and business.
Instagram has a character restriction of 2,200 for post captions. The ideal caption length to increase engagement is generally between 138 and 150 characters. And like Facebook, you want to put the most engaging/important information first to compel your followers to continue reading. If you’re running Instagram Ads, stick to about 125 characters.
Instagram is different from other platforms in that you need a visual element to post. Meaning that, unlike Facebook or Twitter, you can’t share a few sentences about how you’re feeling and leave it at that. Well, unless you add text to a background via Instagram stories, which disappear after 24 hours.
If you’re posting on the Instagram feed, you will need a high-quality image, video, or animation. So (understandably), you might not be able to keep up with the recommended one-post-per-day schedule.
The takeaway: rather than sharing poor quality and half-hearted content, post less often, but with quality content, and at key times.
Here are some recommended times and days to post on Instagram if you have limited time and resources:
And if you have enough time and quality content to post once a day, try:
Struggling with Instagram post ideas? Here are some suggestions to get you started:
LinkedIn is a social media platform designed for the professional or business community. People can connect and network with others in their industry, share best practices or advertise products and services.
According to LinkedIn:
“LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network on the internet…A complete LinkedIn profile can help you connect with opportunities by showcasing your unique professional story through experience, skills, and education...You can also use LinkedIn to organize offline events, join groups, write articles, post photos and videos, and more.”
It’s no wonder that LinkedIn is the go-to social networking site for professionals.
LinkedIn has a total user base of 738 million, which is less than Facebook and Instagram, but LinkedIn has a more specific user in mind: the professional. The largest age group on the platform is aged 46 to 55.
There is little difference in male and female representation at 51% and 49%, respectively. Most users (63%) check in with LinkedIn monthly, whereas 22% check in weekly. Some popular topics on LinkedIn include relatable humor, heartwarming stories, challenging conventional wisdom, and data-driven viewpoints.
If your target audience is professionals or other businesses, LinkedIn is a must for your social media strategy. It’s one of the best ways to reach key decision-makers and grow your professional network.
Here are some more considerations about LinkedIn:
If you’ve decided that LinkedIn is a good fit for your schedule, industry, and business model, here are some ways you can get the most out of your precious time on the platform.
Hashtags aren’t going to make or break a LinkedIn post like they would Instagram or Twitter, but they are still worth using within your posts to place your content in front of the right audiences. You can also follow hashtags on LinkedIn so you can engage with people who are posting about topics relevant to your business.
LinkedIn recommends about three to five hashtags in a post, and they will even suggest relevant hashtags to use when writing your post. You can also use location hashtags to connect with people in your local area: a great tactic for brick-and-mortar businesses.
LinkedIn’s character restrictions are a little more generous than other platforms, but just like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, shorter posts tend to perform better. So aim to keep your LinkedIn posts between 50 to 100 characters.
The general guide is to post once a day and never more than twice on the same day. A once-a-day schedule is a little easier to stick to on LinkedIn than on other platforms because you don’t necessarily need a visual.
In general, most LinkedIn users keep it professional, meaning it’s easy to share other people’s updates with your reflection or addition. Without spending ages quality checking the original content.
Unlike other platforms, people won’t frown upon their co-workers or employees for getting social on LinkedIn during work hours. Other LinkedIn members will generally be active throughout the 9 am to 5 pm period, and some even flock to LinkedIn on the weekend.
The best times to post include between 8 am and 2 pm, while the best days tend to be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Struggling with LinkedIn post ideas? Here are some suggestions to get you started:
In the final two parts, we show you how to adopt a social media schedule that works for you and your audience and take a brief look at using analytics and insights to replicate success.
In the previous section, we provided information to help you make an informed choice about which social media platform or platforms would make the most sense for your brand and schedule. We also outlined the best times and how often to post for each forum.
You can use this information to help you create a content schedule that means you can stay consistent (which will maximize your impact on social media) and achieve the most value in the time you have available.
Let’s say your target audience is professionals, meaning LinkedIn is the most suitable platform for your business needs. So you could start by producing the type of content which is generally successful on the forum.
You might not have time to post once a day, but you may have time to post three times a week. In which case, you would post on the best days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) and times (between 8 am and 2 pm) to have the most impact.
If you have more time, you might look at the second-best platform for your business needs. In this case, it might be Facebook because your product is a high-ticket item, and the platform has an older demographic with more disposable income.
To save time, you could repurpose your content from LinkedIn to repost on Facebook. Once again, you might not have time to post once a day, but you can do it at least three times per week. Meaning you would post Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (the best days) between 9 am and 8 pm (the best times).
Tuesday: LinkedIn(Content B) @8.45am
Wednesday: LinkedIn (Content C) @1.15pm / Facebook (Content B) @9am
Thursday: LinkedIn (Content A) @8.15am / Facebook (Content C) @4pm
Friday: Facebook (Content A) @9.15am
The above example means that you will post when most people tend to frequent the platforms, increasing the potential that browsers see and engage with your content.
Content schedulers are like the “look, Mom; I’m riding my bike with no hands” tools of social media posting. By that, we mean you don’t always have to sit at your desk or even be active on social media for a post to go ‘live’ because you can schedule your content days, weeks, and months in advance.
Here’s a top tip: block out time to create quality content in batches and then schedule it.
There are many schedulers available that work in tandem with the social media platforms mentioned in this article, and most of them offer a free plan. Buffer, for example, works with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and their free plan allows for:
If you wanted to dedicate all of your time to Twitter, try Tweetdeck. Or, if you wanted to focus exclusively on Facebook, try their inbuilt scheduler.
Maybe you want to post on all four platforms without investing in a paid plan? In which case, you could use either Tweetdeck or Facebook’s inbuilt scheduler and use Buffer to schedule the remaining three social channels.
Some other social media scheduling tools to explore are:
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all gather analytics/insights to show how much/when people interact with your posts and overall audience growth. Meaning you can truly tailor your content and identify the best times and days to post for your audience.
Most social media scheduling tools arrange the data in a user-friendly way, and some even provide reports (highlighting key trends and best performing content) to save you time.
Alternatively, you can access the data directly from the social media platforms themselves.
Each social media has its specific language to communicate trends. Still, in general, you are looking for posts that produce noticeable user engagement: aka lots of people liked, commented, shared, or otherwise interacted with the post.
You can also look for sharp increases in new followers, identify the types of content you posted that day, week, or month, and look to repurpose or replicate it. You can also determine when most people interact with your content.
By accessing this data, you can improve your social media content and tweak your schedule because it will paint a clearer picture of when your audience is most responsive and what content they engage more frequently.
Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you took away some valuable learning from this guide so that your small business can get the most out of social media.
Remember to bookmark this article to return to it later, and stay tuned for the next installment of our Marketing Roadmap, which is all about blogging and SEO best practices!
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