Your small business is on social media! You’ve secured your accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and post regularly on social media! (Define ‘regularly’ right!?) You’ve even tried TikTok and making a video!

But there’s a difference between being on social media and having success with social media. You read about brands that are rocking social media and wonder how they’re doing it.

There are 12 steps to social media success. Here they are in hopes of your small business finding success and seeing sales and revenues increase.

Step 1 – Research and Know Your Audience. Use Google Analytics to see from which social media outlets consumers are reaching your website. No sense spending time on Facebook if no one is coming from there. Additionally, you can understand which are your best articles. You can replicate those subjects in future blogs.

Step 2 – Pick Your Social Platforms. There are only so many hours in the day and you have staff, accounting, deliveries, and more to deal with. As we share in seminars, pick one or two and own them. Step 1 above will help you know on which one or two outlets to focus.

Step 3 – Pick Your KPIs. Key Performance Indicators. What numbers are you going to review each month or quarter to know if you’re having success? We suggest engagement – clicks, likes, comments, shares, and brand mentions; and reach – followers or fans, impressions and traffic to your website. That engagement and traffic should lead to customers and sales, the last two KPIs.

Step 4 – Write A Social Media Playbook. Part strategy and part implementation, the playbook explains when, where, how, and why social media should come to life for your small business. Expectations, assigned tasks, content ideas, timelines, all should be outlined in the document.

Step 5 – Align Your Company Around Your Plan. Share the playbook with your staff. Make it transparent so everyone is on board, informed, and accountable.

Step 6 – Schedule An Hour Each Week To Schedule Posts. We’ve shared checklists for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter to further help with scheduling tasks around social media management.

Step 7 – Create A Content Bank. Develop a ‘bank’ where you can keep ideas – memes, articles, videos, etc. Evernote or Wunderlist are two tools. You can also email yourself and place the emails in a folder.

Step 8 – Post Relevant Content. Use Google Alerts to stay up on trends and news. Additionally, ask is your content useful, visual, or emotional? These three types of content are shareable. You’ll also want to make it engaging which means you are asking them to take some sort of action, watch a video, click on a link, etc.

Step 9 – Treat All Social Channel Separately. This is our ‘fingernails on chalkboard.’ Do NOT connect the channels and tweet your post from Instagram for example! We share the many reasons why you should disconnect, or not even connect your social media accounts.

Step 10 – Test. Test your content and posting schedule. Does one picture work better than another? Is one ‘voice’ resounding better with the audience than another? Did that post at 9am get better engagement than the 2pm? A/B test your posts to identify optimal content.

Step 11 – Assign Someone As A Customer Service Representative. (If you have the additional staff.) Social Media is consumers’ preferred choice for sharing feedback or reaching out with a customer support issue or question. And they want a quick response! 76% expect a response within 24 hours. Assign it to someone to check daily, make it a duty on a shift to check for DMs and mentions, or include it in your daily tasks.

Step 12 – Review Your Activities and Reanalyze. What’s working? What’s not? Remember your KPIs in Step 3? Check them. Adjust your playbook and content strategy.

By following the 12 steps above, you will have a plan for your small business social media marketing you can follow, review, and adjust accordingly. If you have questions about any step or need assistance with your social media, feel free to contact us! We manage social media for various brands and would welcome the opportunity to work with you.