Social Media Marketing for Local Business

Social media marketing offers significant advantages to local small and mid-size companies. The leverage for most local businesses, attained by social media channels, can boost the business in several significant ways.

Topics included in the Social Media Marketing Category:

The Social Media Marketing Category covers all the strategies and techniques for leveraging the power of social media to help a business build brand recognition, promote their business services, build an online following, offer advertisements and promotions, and compete for their ideal customers.

Service Topics Include:

• Benefits to Local Businesses
• Social Media Marketing Topics
• Build and promote your Brand
• Understanding Social Media Marketing 
• Social Media Platform Updates
• How to promote authority and Network
• Advertising with Social Media
• Emerging Trends with Social Media Platforms

8 Benefits of Local Business Social Media Marketing

• Readily available methods to establish and boost brand
• Opportunity to position and promote the brand authority of local business owners
• Establish networking relationships with other experts and authorities in the chosen niche
• Generate followers and lead-building opportunities
• Use social media advertising in an affordable, budget controlled, application
• Provide the opportunity for a higher level of customer engagement and service
• Judiciously promote products and services

Let’s review each of these through the eyes of the local business.

Build Local Company Brand

The usual path for local businesses to establish their brand generally falls into one of several categories.

• The business is a franchise and can leverage the “brand authority” that may be established by the franchisor
• Paid advertising through local media such as newspapers, directories, local periodicals, and perhaps radio and television
• Word of mouth from satisfied customers

These methods can be effective no doubt. Many local businesses are not franchisees. For those who are, you become very dependent on the continued promotion of the Franchisor. If they fall out of favor it would have a direct effect on the local franchisee.

Local media advertising can be very effective but is expensive and tends to reach far wider than the customers to be targeted. You may be paying for reach that is too broad.

By far the long-term best standard method is word-of-mouth. Nothing recommends your company better than a positive note from a satisfied customer to someone in their own network of friends and acquaintances. Our company is located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in our more local area east of Newtown, Ohio, there are both a number of new businesses being opened and a resurgence of existing businesses.  These situations are exactly the opportunity for social media marketing to expand and boost their local business opportunities.  It is like that in almost every community today.

Imagine the brand-building benefits of social media when applied properly. You will still have the advantage of word of mouth and now provide a much easier and more frequent opportunity. You will generate followers who not only may become potential customers but will add to your brand promotion through the sharing available on social media accounts. Social media advertising can be affordable and measurable to the extent of constantly refining your ads and results.

“73% of people in the 18- to 34-year-old segment want to see a business owner’s photo with the company’s history on its website. 63% of people 55 and older feel that the owner’s photo and company’s story is important.” (Source: Small Biz Trends.com)

By far the most important advantage afforded by this form of media advertising is the ability to target much more precisely the audience who see your ads.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

“Social media marketing (also known as digital marketing and e-marketing) is the use of social media—the platforms on which users build social networks and share information—to build a company’s brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. In addition to providing companies with a way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones, SMM has purpose-built data analytics that allows marketers to track the success of their efforts and identify even more ways to engage.” (Source: Investopedia)

Social Media Platform Update

New social media channels are being created and existing platforms evolve.  Here is an update on Platforms.

• TikTok: This platform has exploded in popularity since 2017 and is now a vital channel for reaching younger audiences.
  • Local businesses can use TikTok for short-form video marketing.
  • If TikTok connects with your target audience it is important to understand TikTok trends and challenges.
  • Content Ideas: Search out trends and gain insight from your existing customers. You can then create short-form videos on these topics.
• Instagram: Instagram’s evolving features, such as Reels, Stories, and Guides.
  • The IG platform is suited to visual storytelling and brand building.
• Here is a Guide to help you with tips for creating short-form videos. (1)
• Facebook: While Facebook remains important, its role has shifted.
  • Learn to use Facebook Groups for community building.
  • Leverage Facebook’s ability to target specific market segments like your target audience.
  • Facebook ads are particularly suited for targeted local marketing.
  • You can win on Facebook by creating engaging Facebook content that encourages interaction.
    
• LinkedIn: Expand on LinkedIn’s potential for B2B marketing.
  • Local businesses can use LinkedIn for B2B to connect with other businesses and professionals.
  • Creating a strong LinkedIn business page is important. LinkedIn makes it easy. LinkedIn company page.
  •  LinkedIn is also a powerful tool for lead generation.
• Other Platforms: Briefly mention other relevant platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, and Nextdoor, depending on the target audience and business type.
• Content Ideas:
• Guide for using YouTube Shorts
• Information on using Social Media Scheduling Software
• Using Social Media Influencers in the local target area
• Content on “X” formerly Twitter

Linked in for Business Marketing

The social media channel Linkedin is very much associated with business marketing specifically business-to-business.

Studies show that 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, and 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content. (Source: business.linkedin.com)

We found a very good reference for building a specific marketing plan with Linkedin and shared it here for your review.

Promoting Authority with Social Media Channels

Most local small and mid-size businesses have specific knowledge and expertise in their products and services. They are in a position to establish and promote their reputations for this knowledge and experience. Social media becomes an enabler that will allow local business to project their expertise, particularly in their primary geographic target market. This promotion can take the form of connecting to articles, guides, and white papers on their business website by promotion on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Networking and Authority Building

The expertise within the local company can leverage social media to grow its network and connections with other authorities and industry-specific experts. This has the effect of enhancing and growing their reputation and authority. People will begin to seek information and ideas from awareness of the authority for a given business utilizing local business marketing.

Expanding the local businesses’ network with other experts (non-competitors) not only brings forth their expertise but allows them to begin a process of what is called “influencer marketing”. Large companies with more regional and global markets have implemented this strategy by having celebrities and nationally recognized authorities speak for their companies through advertising and programming.

Local companies can implement a similar strategy but without the expense. Once a growing list of authorities in their target market is established, the local business can use “guest blogging”, providing an article of interest to the other expert for their website. This opens the door for that expert’s followers to be connected to the local business author and their brand and reach expand.

Lead Generation Opportunities with Social Media

Certainly one of the most powerful local business aspects of social media marketing and outreach is the opportunity to uncover and attract new qualified leads for their business. The use of social media channels to grow followers and create the kind of information value afforded by the connection of social media to a business website generates opportunities. As the reach of a local business’s social media followers grows, the opportunity for people to share and recommend content to others creating that desired “viral chain” is a core functionality of social media accounts.

Facebook and Social Media Advertising

It is relevant to remember that the way social media channels make money is via paid advertising. Take Facebook advertising as an example. You have two primary opportunities that are ideally suited to local small and mid-size businesses.

1. the ability to specifically target advertisements to a specific set of audience demographics dialed into as close to the ideal potential customer as possible has unparalleled advantages over broader and more expensive traditional forms of advertising.

2. The local business can control the amount of ad spend. There are various choices of what the business chooses to use in their target ads, such as pay-per-click or pay-per-action and a daily budget as low as $5 can be set for as many days as desired and stopped at will by the local business.

3. Tracking results is built into these social media ads on Facebook and most of the social media channels. The results of the ads are readily tracked. This allows the business to evaluate its ad campaign, stop it to make changes, and then restart it after making changes and improvements.

Customer Service Opportunities on Social Media

The local business has an ideal opportunity to utilize their social media channels to provide a higher level of customer service. Questions and problems can be addressed there. Others see the responsiveness and benefit from the solutions and ideas presented to the service outreach of other followers. The business can be proactive in building customer relations by a purposeful utilization of its media channels.

Promoting Products and Services on Social Media Channels

We have discussed the use of advertising on these media channels but the free use o social media to advance announcements of new products or services, and create campaigns or contests can open sales opportunities.

The key here is to keep the self-promotion activities on social media in balance. Industry experts suggest that 75% of social media posts should be valuable content for visitors and 25% commercial promotion. This seems a fair and balanced ratio to strike.

 

Interesting Emerging Trends with Social Media

• Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

  Briefly discuss how AR and VR technologies are being used in social media marketing.

  • AR offers immersive and interactive experiences that can create higher levels of engagement than many traditional advertising initiatives. AR can turn static ads into dynamic experiences, Imagine how you can make marketing messages more memorable for your target audience
  • Content Ideas:
    • Provide examples of how businesses are using AR filters and VR experiences on social media.
    • Discuss the potential of AR and VR for creating more immersive and engaging social media experiences.

• Social Commerce

  Highlight the growing trend of social commerce, where consumers can make purchases directly within social media platforms.

  • Content Ideas:
    • Explain how to set up and use social commerce features on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
    • Discuss the benefits of social commerce for local businesses.
    • Provide tips for creating compelling product listings on social media.

As you can see, the use of social media marketing and the leverage it provides to the affordability and ease of use for the local small and mid-size companies has become just the edge they need to compete and be noticed.  For our part  we believe in it as a primary marketing tool for local businesses.

 

REFERENCES:

1) Sked Social: How to create Reels
https://skedsocial.com/blog/how-to-create-reels-that-stand-out

2) LinkedIn: Creating a Company Page
https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/linkedin-pages

Images:

• BI Intelligence
• Platform Use: Social Media Examiner

Graphics: Created in Canva.com

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