For many small business owners, social media offers a great opportunity to connect directly with potential customers, build brand awareness, and drive sales. However, with countless platforms, ever-changing algorithms and multiple (self-proclaimed) experts filling your feeds with advice, social media can be a little overwhelming and take up a disproportionate amount of your (precious) time.

In this blog we’ll share some tips to help you maximise your social media efforts without letting it take over your already busy work schedule! 

Tip #1 Set clear and realistic goals

Firstly, a reminder that your social media goals should align with your overall business goals. So, before you do anything else, think carefully about what business success looks like in the form of your social media efforts. This will help keep you on target in a very distracting marketing tool!

Some social media goal ideas (from easiest to hardest):

• Brand awareness
• Increased website traffic
• Community building
• Mailing list sign-ups
• Purchases

Tip #2 Choose your platform wisely

TikTok, Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat. So many platforms, so little time! You cannot possibly be a master of them all. Do some research into where your ideal customer (aka target audience) is most active (click here for a useful article on this by Social Sprout). Think about the kind of content that you can (and want) to create and which platform(s) suit that type of content best.

Then focus on 1 or 2 social media platforms where:

• your people are
• your content fits
• your brand can meet the social media goals you have set.

Tip #3 Keep it sustainable

Managing social media requires time and effort. Be realistic about how much time your business can spend on social media and what you can achieve in it. Posting a video every day on TikTok sounds impressive, but is likely to lead to burn out and is probably not worth the hours it will take away from running your business.

Start as you mean to go on and try planning your content in advance to help you maintain a steady posting schedule.

Tip #4 Be social

Remind yourself regularly, that social media rewards you for being social! Don’t forget to:

• Respond to people's comments, messages and mentions promptly.
• Show genuine interest in your followers.
• Ask questions, run polls and host contests to foster engagement.

Consider partnering with a complementary business or person for cross-promotion and to reach a wider audience.

Tip #5 Review to stay on track

Social media is fun (oohh likes), highly addictive (hello late night scrolling) and will run your ads whether they are working or not (ads are a whole different blog!). Make sure you keep on top of your stats (particularly if you are paying for ads) and check your results against your goals. Decide what's working and what's not. Adjust your content and strategy accordingly.

Remember social media is changing all the time. What works for you today, may not work next month. A once-a-month check-in is a must.

Tip #6 Remember social media is not the be all and end all

Perhaps our most controversial tip! Yes, social media can be a powerful marketing tool for small businesses, but it’s one of many. Don’t forget to utilise other channels and make sure part of your social media strategy is capturing leads and customers details, so that you can contact them outside of your preferred social media platform should it ever fall out of fashion (which it may) or change its algorithm (which it will).

Now with these tips in mind, go forth small business owner and use your time allocated to social media marketing wisely.

By: Rosie Pratt