Inside Small Business spoke to social-media intelligence expert David Hickey about how SMEs can best harness social media to promote and grow their business.
ISB: Are any of the social media platforms more appropriate than the others when it comes to small businesses specifically?
DH: All platforms have their place in social-media marketing. Trial and error is the way to go with an SME’s social-media strategy – start out with a presence on all platforms, but over time focus on those that are giving the best return for the least effort.
ISB: How does a small business go about devising a social-media strategy?
Start out by simply watching and listening to what is going on social media in your space, look at the Twitter feeds and Facebook and LinkedIn pages of your competitors and professional organisations in your industry.
Once you’ve seen the type of posts that get the most engagement, start posting your own content – and bear in mind questions are more effective than statements in social media posts. Ensure that from the outset you also share content other people are in your space are providing – they’ll then be more likely to share your content on their networks.
You need to get shares from the ‘right kind of people’ to share your content with their audience in order to optimize ROI, again this will be a process of trial and error so don’t give up if you don’t get a lot of engagement when you first start out.
ISB: You mentioned focusing on one or two platforms over time, once you’ve started to get a picture of what you’re getting from which stream – is their effectiveness dependent on the industry you’re in?
Yes, the most effective platform will depend to some extent on the field you operate in. Generally, Instagram and Pinterest are most suitable for retailers of well-designed, attractive products, whereas Twitter works best for those selling software or services.
People are more guarded on Twitter as it’s a completely open platform – they’re more open about what they post on Facebook as they see it as a ‘personal’ site, so they type of product or service you’re offering will impact on where you get the most engagement.
ISB: And how about the time of day you post content – does that make a difference?
The most effective times to share content on social media are the morning commute, lunchtimes and the evening commute.
Of these the commuting periods are best – people are on their devices at lunchtimes but they only have limited time and are also eating their lunch, when they’re on the train, tram or bus they’re a captive audience.
Analyse what times are working best for you over time and schedule regular posts then. Social media posts shouldn’t just be an ad hoc or an afterthought – handled that way they won’t provide you with a return. You need to set aside a little bit of time to carefully consider what you’re posting, when you’re putting it up and then engaging with those who are sharing your posts or commenting on them.
ISB: What about LinkedIn?
You must start a company page on LinkedIn, to which you can post content. LinkedIn groups should be kept for discussion and comment, and not bombarded with content.
Look at other LinkedIn groups in your field, join them and invite conversation leaders in those groups to join yours.
ISB: Do businesses need to rely on monitoring their own feedback to develop their social-media strategy?
Not at all. Get ‘outside insight’ – there is plenty of data about your market and your competitors that you don’t own but that you’re perfectly entitled to make use of.
For example, many theatres use social media data to analyse not only which of their own plays are generating the most traffic, but also which are doing so overseas – they use this data to decide on the plays they schedule for their own stage in the future.
In social media marketing, as in so many other walks of life, information is power!
David Hickey is Director of media-intelligence company Meltwater ANZ
