Small businesses tend to approach social media in one of two ways. They open an account on every platform and post the same thing everywhere until they run out of energy. Or they post nothing for months and then announce a discount. Neither builds anything. A plan that fits in two or three hours a week does.
Be clear about what it is for
Organic social media, meaning posts you do not pay to promote, rarely produces direct sales for a small business. Platforms show unpaid posts from company pages to a small share of followers. What it does well is different.
- It shows that the business is active and real when a prospect looks you up.
- It keeps you in the mind of people who already know you.
- It gives customers a place to ask questions.
- It supplies material and audiences for paid campaigns.
Set the expectation accordingly. If you need enquiries next month, that is a job for search or paid ads.
Pick one or two platforms
- LinkedIn if you sell to other businesses. Posts from people usually reach further than posts from company pages, so the founder and the team matter.
- Instagram if the product or the work is visual: food, interiors, fashion, crafts, events.
- Facebook for local businesses and communities, and for an older audience.
- YouTube if explaining or demonstrating helps people buy. Videos are also found through search for years.
- WhatsApp channels or business messaging where customers already use it to talk to companies.
Go where your customers are, not where you personally spend time. Claim your name on the others, point the profile to the active one, and leave them.
Three or four themes
Deciding what to post every day is tiring. Deciding once is not. Choose a few themes and rotate.
- Teach. Answer a question customers ask. Each answer is one post.
- Show the work. A finished project, before and after, how something is made.
- Proof. A customer's result or review, with permission.
- People. Who is behind the business, and how you work.
Keep direct promotion to a small share. An account that only advertises is ignored.
A weekly routine
Two or three posts a week, kept up for a year, beat daily posts for a month.
- Once a month, list eight to twelve post ideas from the themes.
- Once a week, spend an hour writing and scheduling the week's posts.
- Every working day, spend ten minutes replying to comments and messages.
Take photos and short videos during normal work. Material gathered as you go costs almost nothing. Reuse an article as several posts, and repeat a post that worked a few months later, since most followers never saw it.
Write for the feed
- The first line decides whether anyone reads on. Start with the point.
- Write as a person, in plain words.
- Add captions to video. Most is watched without sound.
- Put the content in the post itself. Posts that only exist to send people to a link tend to reach fewer people.
- Use real photos. Stock images are passed over.
Reply
A question left unanswered in public is worse than no account. Answer comments and messages within a working day. Handle complaints calmly and move the detail to a private channel. Agree in advance who answers and what they may promise.
What to measure
Follower counts and likes are easy to watch and say little about business. Track visits to your site from each platform, enquiries that mention social media, messages received, and whether prospects say they have seen your posts. Review every quarter and drop the themes nobody responds to.
Summary
Know what social media can do for you, choose one or two platforms, rotate a few themes, keep a weekly routine and reply to people. Social media planning and management are part of our SEO and digital marketing service. If your accounts have gone quiet, we can set up a plan your team can keep.