10 Ways To Promote Your Small Business Social Media Profiles
Your company blog, email newsletter and social media profiles have been created. Now, how do you promote them to help grow your blog readership, subscription rate, followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram?
Chances are, unless your business is well established, people don’t know to search for it online or that it even exists. To begin encouraging people to join your business’s online community they first must be made aware of its online presence. The truth is, if your doing the correct marketing, they should not have to search for the business’s social media profiles – they should know how to find them.
Learning how to advertise a business’s social media presence is every bit as important as the maintenance and updating of the social media profiles with fresh content that users want to read and share. People must know they exist and understand the benefits of joining your social media community.
Let’s discuss a few ways to promote social media profiles that are proven to increase engagement and community size.
1. Utilize The Local Community
Where does your local community interact? At school board meetings? In online forums for community members? At the local coffee shop? Wherever the people are…that’s where your business should be advertising its online social media presence.
Give-out flyers at local events with your social media profiles listed, collect email addresses at meetings or events using tablets, and tack announcement boards with business advertisements. Team up with local businesses to display post card announcements and put decals on business windows.
2. Online and On Your Website
Add easy-to-use social media buttons to your business website, include social media profile links in your email newsletter, and in all business-related email signatures.
Small Business Tip: Create all social media account profiles using your business name or a similar name. The easier it is for people to locate a business, the faster they will. This will also help secure Google search result spots for your brand name, and can help with reputation management..
3. Paid Social Media Advertising
Although it is not necessary for every business, there are many who have gotten great results from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn advertising. If your business is new and you want to quickly locate its target audience, paid advertising is a good way to start. Use the ads in conjunction with a promo to jump-start your online social media presence. Research the network plans and set a budget for 3-6 months to see real results.
4. Advertise On The Company Blog
A business blog can generate a large amount of traffic and can leverage that traffic as a unique entity amongst its competitors.
Add sharing buttons to all posts so readers can easily repost and share with their networks. Seek out other industry-related blogs and leave a comment that includes the blog url. Just make sure your comments adds real value to the conversation, otherwise it will come off as cheap self-promotion. Share blog posts across every social media network and include appropriate tags so readers can locate it easily.
5. Complete Company Profiles You Find Online
Search for your business name online and fill out all the relevant profiles. Add business information, summaries, calls-to-action and pictures where possible. This will not only help with your social media presence, but it will help with local SEO as well.
Make sure the major landing spots for potential customers, such as Yelp or Google Places, include the correct business information and generate interest. Include links to social media profiles and your business website and be sure to respond to every publicly-placed comment.
Small Business Tip: Don’t be afraid of negative comments or reviews on your social media profiles. A negative comment without a response reflects poorly on the business, even if it was addressed privately. Such comments can also be used to make your business better and provide a better customer experience for your users.
6. Tell Users Why
Placing lins to social media profiles in all the right places on and offline does not guarantee people will be interested – you must give them a reason to follow.
Offering exclusive offers, tips, industry-related news or how-to’s gives your target audience incentive to follow your business and subscribe to your email newsletter. Use your profile and website to make those benefits crystal clear.
Advanced Small Business Tip: A great way to entice users to follow you is to show them how many others are following you already. Place that information near your follow button or request, so it’s highly visible. For example, you could write, “Make sure to follow us on Twitter and join hundreds of other businesses that are getting tips and insights about [insert topic].” This type of statement tells your audience you’re worth following – like a type of “Social Proof.”
7. Use All Communication Channels
This might sound like a no-brainer, but social media profiles should be advertised across every communication channel for your business.
- If customers listen to “hold music” while waiting to talk to you, mention your social media profiles
- If there is a business advertisement on your vehicle, add social media decals
- Have employees include business profile links in email signatures
- Add your social media links to business cards
- Add social media links to uniforms or name tags
- If you’re advertising in magazines or newspapers or on the radio and/or television, make sure you’re including your top 2-3 social media channels in your ads
- If you’re a restaurant, include social profiles on tables or menus, receipts…even mirrors in your restroom.
8. Use Your Other Social Channels
Don’t forget to advertise social media profiles across the networks. Ask followers on Twitter to join the business on Facebook or Pinterest. and vice versa.
Because users on each social network have joined that network for a unique reason, do not offer the same content across all networks – shuffle it up and create the content according to the individual network. For example, followers on LinkedIn, don’t want funny photos (like you’d post on Facebook), they want professional business information and insight.
9. Trade Shows and Events
Trade shows and events are a great place to market your small business’s social profiles. There are many apps, such as our own Social Media Signup app that can be used at a kiosk or at your booth.
Promote profiles in event advertising such as exhibitions or anywhere the business is being represented.
10. Word of Mouth (WOM)
It may be an old-fashioned way of advertising, but word of mouth is still the foundation of every form of advertisement. Talk, talk, talk about the business’s social media profiles, have employees actively engage in conversation about them and ask every client or potential client if they are aware of your online presence. They may not want to buy or work with your business in the beginning, but they may change their mind after following one of your social profiles and learning more about what you do.
In Essence…make it a priority for your business to tell everyone about where they can find the business online.
