SMEs: How Can They Utilize Social Media Marketing Strategies in 2019? By Téa Liarokapi

When Social Media Platform Facebook became open to the public in 2006, there was nobody that could’ve imagined how influential and, in the end, necessary, it would become to our day-to-day lives.

There really is no aspect of our lives that is not influenced by social media, from politics to the simple “What are we doing for dinner tonight?”.

Of course, brands could not have remained impartial and continued their endeavours through websites, email marketing, and marketing automation software, campaigns, and word of mouth alone. Especially Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The numbers don’t lie when it comes to that one:

Most people check online reviews when it comes to local businesses. So, as is evident, you’ll need to utilize social media marketing tactics to generate revenue and, eventually, help your sales and reach your targets.

Social media marketing is not something that could be optional, like it was, say, ten years ago. On the contrary, it’s the only foolproof way to be noticed, especially nowadays, that customers have such a wide variety of options.

But how are you going to set a successful social media marketing campaign for your SME?

KPIs are essential

Before moving forward, you’ll need to make sure that you know where you’re headed. In other words, what your KPIs are.

It’s only logical that without goals, you can’t have a strategy, as you don’t know what you’re aiming for.

And in order to know what you’re aiming for, you’ll need to make sure that you know all there is to know about your target audience.

Your target audience is the group of people that can potentially make the most of whatever it is that you have to offer.

By segmenting your audience and studying the data, you’ll be able to create different categories that can help you in different ways. That kind of data is what will, in the end, create your buyer personas and your buyer personas will help you come up with a valid, data-driven strategy.

Another thing your target audience will help you with is determining which platform is best for your business.

Maybe Facebook won’t cut it in the end, or maybe Snapchat is what most of your prospects use. Why make moves on every single platform, when you can exploit one and use the others in order to promote the one that can help you convert in the first place?

Once you’ve got that down, study your audience to find this out: How does your brand relate to them? What is the common ground? What core values do you share?

Of course, you can’t answer these questions just thinking about your product. Rather, you have to answer these questions thinking about what kind of values your product can express.

And of course, buyer personas are essential if you want to discover that and make good use of it.

Content is king

I can’t stress that enough. Content is what can make or break a business, so you’ll need to try and move forward without making any rookie mistakes.

This is mainly because there is such a plethora of businesses on social media platforms, both big and small, that you’ll need to be fantastic right off the bat in order to stand out.

Try and be as original as possible, with content that will make a difference: Try to create the ideal blend of evergreen and trending content and when a form of the content doesn’t work, try to repurpose it.

Turn posts into infographics and infographics into videos. This will keep you from running out of ideas and your audience will love having something familiar and, at the same time, fresh to look at.

Just sit down and study the buyer personas I mentioned previously. What kind of assumptions can you make by checking out their data?

Figure that out and go forth with creating content that will match the expectations your audience might have.

Try to answer the dreaded “Why”, effectively:

Why would a consumer buy your product?
Why do they need to trust your brand?
Why would you, as a brand, like to become a staple in their life?

And no, “To earn more” is not the answer you should be looking for, when it comes to my last question.

Also, a strong, distinctive tone of voice creates the sense that the customer is going to engage with a brand that can, one way or another, do business.

Your content should have CTAs that are strong, catchy and suitable for your tone, product and situation you’re describing.

Of course, social media platforms cannot work on their own, without some extra effort, some boost that won’t break the bank.

There is only one foolproof way to achieve that and it’s called “user-generated content”. It’s a fantastic technique that will boost brand awareness, engagement and will give your brand a friendly, H2H tone that everyone aims for today.

And it’s cost-effective too, seeing as you’re asking your users to generate content for you. All you need to do, is pick out the content that will tie in well with your brand. Show your customers some love and appreciation by running a contest and picking out their content to showcase on your social media.

Of course, you should also consider an SEO tool that could help you with your endeavours.

Pro tip:

In order for that content to reach a broader audience, you’ll need to spice things up a bit and combine SMM and email marketing. You see, not all people use social media platforms, but more than most people use emails.

You can put your UGC into a newsletter and make a campaign out of it. Just make sure to include a “Forward” button, complete with a clever CTA (and, perhaps, some kind of incentive).

Many email marketing platforms can give you that option. For example, Moosend, which is a Mailchimp alternative, can provide that option.

And don’t assume that you need no newsletter, because of the way you use social media. Losing referral opportunities because of that, is like leaving money on the table.

Product is where it all begins

Of course, you can’t go about creating a social media marketing strategy without not only know what you have to offer but what your competition has to offer as well.

Every niche is more or less very crowded, with more than 50 million small businesses using Facebook alone. What you’ll need, will be to study the competition and find a way to eliminate it.

If, for example, you see less and less engagement and non-adapting tone of voice from the majority of brands in your niche, go ahead and do something different, unique but not too flashy.

You need to steal the spotlight, after all. So, sit down and think what it is that sets you apart from the competition. Maybe it’s your general mood (being fun in an all-too-serious niche), maybe it’s the persona you’ve created for your brand, maybe it’s the product itself.

The point is that, without figuring out what sets you apart from the competition, you won’t be able to find a way to stand out.

Ambassadors are important

A brand cannot provide something to remember, all on its own. And marketing teams may be able to do wonders, but without engagement, there is no awareness, without awareness, there is no conversion and without conversion, all endeavours are a losing game.

You can approach brand ambassadors that your ideal customers seem to trust. If they value their opinion, they are bound to follow suit.

Just give a product and ask for a review. You’ll be amazed by how many followers, prospects and engagement this will generate for you.

After that, you can turn your ideal customers to ambassadors with user-generated content. It’s actually good to have a strategy that will encourage UGC and feedback, from the very beginning.

And since we’re talking about SMEs and not huge enterprises, a hashtag will do the trick. Don’t invest time and effort in managing two separate accounts, as Nike does.

By turning your ideal customers into ambassadors, you’re actually approaching their own followers, indirectly. This can result in more conversion and more revenue for your own brand.

Just give them something in exchange, like a free sample or a discount voucher, and surely, many will follow suit.

Takeaway

KPIs are the key, content is the element no business can live without and of course, nothing can survive without research and data-driven decisions.

The most important thing out of all of the above though is being unique and consistent every step of the way. This is the only way your followers will become customers and will end up converting again and again.

Don’t forget that uniqueness and consistency are the two factors that, ultimately, build trust and keep your customers on their toes and coming back for more.
Author Bio:

Téa is a content writer working for email marketing software company Moosend and an obsessive writer in general. In her free time, she tries to find new ways to stuff more books in her bookcase and content ideas-and cats-to play with.