6 tips to rock social media for small business

Love it or hate it, social media is here to stay. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more to attract new business, engage and update current clients, create a community for your business, or some combination of all of the above! If you’re not taking advantage of the fact that most of your potential and current clients are probably using one if not many social media outlets, you’re really missing out.

Shawn Gower, the Operations Manager of NorCal Strength and Conditioning, shared his tips about how Norcal approaches social media.

1. Stay on brand Just like with any other public communication, make sure that you’re representing your business the right way. Shawn told us, “If you look at our stuff we try to reflect what we believe in, good movement and fun!”

2. Know the way to your followers’ hearts At NorCal they have “found way more success with funny post. People are using social media to take a break from their lives and so we try to provide a smile or something that makes people say ‘I want to do that’ or ‘I can do that.’ This seems to be the avenue that gets us the most likes per post.” This may not be the right angle for your followers though—play around and track what gets the most likes or comments and then do more of that.

3. Use the right channels Even though every social media platform is a little different sometimes you can take advantage of one post on multiple channels. Shawn says, “We typically kill two birds with one stone and post to Instagram and it auto pushes to Facebook,” which is an awesome time saving idea but he knows that it’s not always the best choice. He continues on saying, “Unless of course we are trying to get folks to sign up for an on ramp or purchase something. In which case we us Facebook since we can share links etc.”

4. Get everyone involved For NorCal Strength and Conditioning, Shawn says, “Our following has come from getting all clients involved by tagging them in pictures.” Making your social media pages a community for all your clients makes them more likely to follow, like, retweet, comment, share, etc. Especially if there’s a chance they’ll log on to Facebook and see their own smiling face!

5. Utilize influencers in your industry If you have connections with anyone who is famous in your industry, take advantage! It can be a local celebrity, a CrossFit athlete, musician—anyone with a big social media following that your clients know and respect. “Having Robb [Wolff] push stuff to his page helped get our audience up to par.”

6. You don’t have to pay the big bucks While advertising can be helpful for many companies, as a small business it’s not always worthwhile! “We don't put a lot of focus on building our page likes, as it seems the business side of things on Facebook has become a pain in the a**, or they want an arm and a leg to "boost" a post. However if marketed properly it can be useful,” Shawn explained.

How are you using social media at your business? Share in the comments!

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