Just 15 Minutes a Day Can Help Grow Your Shed Business Brand
What do you think about when you hear the words “social media”?
Depending on your experience, it can be good or bad, but one thing is true: it’s a powerful tool.
Social media influences connections, ideas, and even buying decisions. Shed industry businesses can use social media to reach potential buyers, build interaction, and maximize business reach.
But with all of the platforms and strategies out there, how can a shed business get started or grow its social media presence positively?
Tracy Lee Davis, owner of ZingPop Social Media and a certified partner for Constant Contact, supports small businesses as a social media coach and an email marketing expert.
She explored how small businesses can successfully use social media during the Service Corps of Retired Executive (SCORE) webinar “Social Media Success Made Simple – Build Your Brand, Grow Your Business.”
“I find that small businesses know that they need to be on social media, but they often feel very overwhelmed figuring out which channels to be on, how to engage with people, how to get results that grow your business,” says Davis.
“It all can seem really overwhelming, and I know that you don’t have a ton of time or a ton of resources to help you get started with and keep up with social media, but you can get started without spending a ton of time or without feeling really overwhelmed.”
BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Davis starts by pointing out some benefits for businesses to engage on social media.
“One big benefit of social media is that it can influence your audience,” she shares. “Obviously, we love that 45 percent of shoppers say that social media hooks their attention.
Another benefit to social media, according to Davis, is that people want to show support for causes that they care about and believe in. She says 84 percent of people choose to share information in order to help spread the word and show support for causes that they care about.
“And in this day and age, people want to be able to find and communicate with you on social media,” Davis points out. “And so, the truth is that 20 percent of consumers are likely to buy from brands that they can reach on social media.
“These are just a few of the reasons that you should be using social media for your business.”
START SIMPLE
The thought of social media for a lot of small businesses can be overwhelming, Davis says.
“I hear the question all the time of do I have to be everywhere?” she says. “Do I have to be on all of the platforms? I am here to tell you and to give you permission, you absolutely do not need to be on every single platform out there. Please don’t do that, especially if you’re just getting started.
“My recommendation is to start off by using one social media platform and add to it as you figure out what works and what doesn’t work for your business. Now it may make a lot of sense for you to go and claim your username on a variety of different social channels, but just pick one for primary use. Find out what works well for you. Find out what works well for your audience, and then as you see success, it might make sense for you to then expand to other platforms.”
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
Davis says that small businesses must understand what type of posted content works, and is appropriate for, different platforms.
“When you do start using multiple channels, I recommend fighting the urge to post the exact same thing on each platform,” she says. “You absolutely can use the same theme, the same sort of ideas, but you want to make changes for each channel. Each channel has its own etiquette, its own vibe, so you want to make sure that you are sharing appropriate content on each platform.”
As an example, Davis recommends going out how a company like Netflix posts on its different social media accounts.
“Of course, Netflix is a huge company with a social media team doing everything, but they do definitely have differences between the sort of content that they’re posting on, for example, Facebook and LinkedIn.
“You want to make sure that you are posting appropriate things to whichever platform(s) you do wind up using.”
Davis often hears that people don’t know what to post, or they’re posting content regularly, but they’re not getting any results.
“I like to think about social media for inputting your activities in three different types of buckets, three different areas that you want to be thinking about when you’re posting on social media,” she shares. “Those are increasing awareness, providing customer service, and driving action.”
Increasing awareness involves letting people know about any updates to your business, the products and services that you offer, any discounts that you’re offering or any promotions that are currently going on and certainly any upcoming events.
“For customer service, people are going to seek you out on social media to ask questions, maybe to make a complaint,” says Davis. “You want to make sure that you are paying attention, that you are actively responding to people who are commenting and posting on your page.
“Remember that all of this is public, so this is a great opportunity to build trust with people by showing that you’re paying attention, that you are listening, and that you care.”
Finally, she says for posts that drive action, this is where you want to share your offers that link back to your website or drive people to your email list so that you can communicate with them, long term, about your business.
BUILDING FOLLOWERS
Another comment Davis hears a lot from small businesses is that they don’t have enough people following them.
“Of course, it’s always a good idea to get more followers, but you want to make sure that they are actual genuine followers,” she shares. “You don’t want to pay to get followers. You want real people who are really interested in you to follow you.
“One strategy is to go and follow people who matter to you and your business, and hopefully they will follow you back. You might consider searching for people near you or with related hashtags and follow them.
“You can also ask your existing customers, and that means utilizing your email list because I know that you’re all sending out regular emails, right? So, in your regular email, have a section asking people to follow you.”
Davis also suggests talking about your social platforms when you’re out networking in person with people.
“Something to consider when joining related groups, in general, is that they can be really effective, but you need to have a product or a service that is very relevant to that community that you’re joining. It can be tough to be a representative of a brand or a business in a group.
“The big thing with joining groups is don’t go into them with the mindset of I’m going to join this group and all I’m going to do is promote my business, my products, or my services. You want to go into these groups thinking, how can I be a contributing member of this group? You want to be commenting on other people’s stuff, providing feedback, providing thoughtful commentary.
“Whatever you’re doing, make sure that you’re being genuine and not just looking for more followers and more business. You want to use social media to be social.”
15-MINUTE SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN
Davis’s 15-minute social media plan is as simple as it sounds.
“If you are just getting started on social media, you want to spend about 15 minutes every day on your one platform that you’re using, and you’ll want to break that up into five-minute increments so that you can really focus on those three goals that we talked about earlier: awareness, customer service, and action,” she says.
“This short amount of time will make your social media efforts much more manageable, and over time with this plan, you’re going to be able to learn what works for you for your audience, for your business, and you’ll be able to make better decisions on how to spend your time, energy, and effort on social media.”
People often ask Davis how often they should post and how much they should post. She recommends focusing on consistency and quality versus quantity.
“It always helps to plan your social media posts so that you can stay on track,” she says.
“For a while there, the thought was you’ve got to be posting every day, or maybe you should be posting multiple times every day. It would be so much better to post once a week something that’s really relevant to your audience, rather than posting something every day just to be posting every day.
“If you’re posting every day and you’re not getting any likes or comments or any engagement, then it’s not being seen as relevant with the algorithm, and so your posts are going to get pushed down in the feed because they’re not as relevant to your audience. But if you post once or twice, and you are getting engagement with those posts, that’s being seen as far more relevant.”
What types of posts can raise awareness? Sharing your products and services and information about them.
“Share behind-the-scenes information about how a product is made,” Davis suggests. “This could even be sharing some great, valuable information that supports your cause or your products and services. Your social channels are ultimately giant search engines, so create content around your business’s name, its location, and what it sells so that people looking for those specific things may have a better chance of coming across you and your products and services.”
For customer service opportunities, Davis suggests responding to comments about your business, keeping in mind that people might be talking about your business without using your name or handle.
“Let people know that you’re paying attention, that you care about how people are perceiving your business,” she says. “Of course, there are times that people will find you on social media and complain or let others know that something didn’t go quite right with your business. It is really important to be paying attention to these sorts of things and to respond. This could be the opportunity to take someone who is perhaps disgruntled with you and make them happy again. Bad experiences are going to happen. It’s just the nature of the world. So, don’t let a mildly bad one turn into a nightmare because you ignore it.”
Finally, you want potential customers to take action.
“This could be talking about an event,” Davis says. “Registrations, purchasing a product, scheduling a consultation, joining your email list, asking polls, asking them to turn on notifications to see your post. Whatever it may be, you’re asking them to do something.”
SOCIAL MEDIA ADS
Davis says another way to extend your reach on social media is through ads.
“When you are relying on organic posts, unless you have a really exceptional page with a high engagement rate, it’s probably going to be about 3 percent or less of your audience that sees your post,” she points out. “Social ads open new avenues for action.
“There are different things that you can do with advertising. You can boost a post, or you can have more options by running an ad. Social ads are a cost-effective way to promote your business.”
One of the benefits of using social media ads to reach more people is that you have the power to target people by various factors, according to Davis.
“You can target by demographics, location, behaviors, interests. You can even add another layer that’s called a look-alike audience, and all of this targeting means that you target people who are most likely to do business with you in the first place, so that you don’t waste money.”
FINAL THOUGHTS
To be effective in your social media efforts, Davis reiterates that you want to focus your time on the three key efforts of driving awareness, providing customer service, and getting people to take action to buy something to register for your event to donate to your cause. To do that you want to start by spending 15 minutes every day to focus on those three goals.
“Once you start seeing your results, you will likely want to spend some more time and resources to use social media for your business,” she says. “And you’ll want to start thinking about using social ads to get a guaranteed spot in your target audience’s timeline. “And that’s going to help you grow your business.”
