5 Cost-Effective Ways to Promote Your Small Business on Social Media
Looking back on 2004, when Facebook was launched, nobody could have predicted the power of social media for marketing. Nowadays Statista estimates 2.77 billion social network users by 2019 which means social media presence isn’t an option for both big and small businesses.
While big companies like Starbucks and Nike get social media right, small business owners need to understand how to use different platforms effectively without spending much money. Since more and more small businesses set foot in social media marketing, companies work in a competitive environment, so keeping up with current digital trends that engage followers is a must.
If you want to surpass your competitors who hope for the attention of the same audience, brainstorm content ideas that can grab and hold your followers’ attention: creativity is a proven way to stay one step ahead of your opponents.
Here are top 5 ideas to promote your small business on social media without spending much money:
1. Become a Giveaway Sponsor
It’s in human’s nature to love free stuff. For this reason, contents and giveaways are extremely popular on social media. It’s no wonder small business owners want to make the most out of this technique and organize a giveaway. However, offering the best promotional gifts you can give means nothing until you have a good following on social media.
To attract new customers, you can become a giveaway sponsor which means another person with a better following will organize the event for you. In most cases, you need to provide the organizer with branded freebies, and he or she will ask participants to follow your social media account. Since people love contents, it’s a fast way to grow following and attract attention to your brand.
2. Offer a Time-Limited Discount
With the holiday shopping season coming closer, it’s a perfect time to offer a discount, and therefore give your potential customers a reason to shop more. According to a study by VoucherCloud, 57% of first-time shoppers are motivated to purchase when they can use a coupon.
The bigger the discount, the more customers you can attract. However, before you start cutting your sales price in half, get math assistance from experts to study the elasticity of demand and supply and the marginality of your discount campaign. It’s important to schedule discount events around specific days and provide customers with a deadline to encourage them to act fast. Since customers don’t want to miss out something special, they are more likely to buy if your offer causes sense of urgency.
3. Collaborate with Micro-influencers
Modern customers don’t trust advertising and they are looking for recommendations from friends and colleagues before making the purchase decisions. Therefore, influencer marketing is getting more and more popular. While it may be expensive for small business owners to work with celebrities and macro-influencers, you can implement a micro-influencer marketing strategy.
Micro-influencers are social media users with a solid following (1-10k people) who have gained trust from their communities. On average, they have a better engagement rate and they charge less than other opinion leaders for the collaboration. When it comes to small business growth, it’s more cost-effective to find a niche-focused influencer who can promote your product in front of his or her followers.
4. Create Useful Content
Information bombards us from all the sides, so modern users are spoiled with the amount and quality of content they receive daily. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to create useful content that can solve your potential customers’ problems. That’s why people love educational content like tutorials and how-to videos.
If readers find your content useful and they know your tips can help them, users are more likely to share it on social media which means entering their communities. The more people share your content, the more potential followers you can attract. Thus, you need to lay a bet on the quality of information you offer: put your customers first and try to help them solve their problems, don’t think about your product promotion.
5. Interact with Your Target Audience
The brutal truth: social media users want to connect with brands online, and most of them expect companies to interact with them on their favorite social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. If you want to attract potential customers, you need to get interested in them first. Thus, interacting with your target audience is a great way to establish a connection with potential followers and turn them into customers with time.
Since we all crave for attention, small businesses can find people who fit their target audience, follow them, like their photos, and read followers comments to understand more about their customers. Moreover, it’s absolutely free which means you don’t spend your budget on social media marketing.
- In a Word
No matter what social media budget you have, there are some proven ways to spread a word about your product without spending big bucks. From being a giveaway sponsor to interacting with your target audience, there are many ways to attract attention to your brand and bring your business to the next level.
Being on a tight budget, social media marketing can still give you great results if you dedicate time to growing your brand online. Choose any of the above-mentioned ideas and give it a try to see the growth of your small business.
Hugh Beaulac is a content manager behind MC2 website who also contributes to different blogs to share his tips on digital marketing. Follow him on Twitter to stay tuned for more.
