Figuring out what to post on social media when you’re a small business
One of the most common requests we get from small businesses, is for help in getting more social media followers. When your business isn’t global or even national, you need to have some perspective on just what demand there is from your local market to consume your content.
And of course, there is the issue where Facebook really doesn’t push much content to people’s feeds these days from business pages. And rightly so. We, as businesses don’t really produce much stuff that anyone wants to know about. Let’s face it, the fact that you’re open 7 days a week with good customer service is something that people expect. It’s not a feature worthy of throwing in front of their faces without paying for the privilege.
Over the last five years or so, local media, such as radio stations have found that they can grab attention on social media platforms from their regional markets by creating memes and funny posts that they either recycle from content on their radio shows, or pinch from other creators elsewhere on the web. And through a mix of local observations, polls, competitions, giveaways and their own content, they’ve been the most effective medium on social media. Especially in regional centres where newspapers and television have been either ineffective or not even present online. They employed the same tactics they had been using to create local breakfast shows or local talkback shows and applied that same content to a new medium. Social media was adapted as simply an extension off what they were already doing on the airwaves. If they didn’t produce local or entertaining content, then no one would listen to their shows on radio, and advertisers wouldn’t advertise as no one would be listening. It made sense to employ the same tactics that had worked so well on radio to what they did on Facebook.
The lesson here for small business who don’t have the advantage of 80 years of entertaining people, is to find what your potential customers like, work out how to time that in to the context of what you do, and put that on your profile. The idea here is that if you are producing the kind of content that people like and expect from businesses like yours, you could gradually build an audience of followers who become fans of what you’re doing.
So how do you work out what to post? If you’re in a business that people generally don’t know much about, you may start by producing content that explains more about what you do. But not necessarily in a boring way. The hit YouTube channel “Will It Blend” came about from a boring old manufacturer of household and commercial blenders who couldn’t work out how to make their product more relevant and interesting for a new, younger audience. By throwing items like brand new iPhones, toys, expensive gadgets and popular everyday items in their blender, they were able to entertain an audience who weren’t necessarily in to blenders, but were morbidly curious to see what would happen when items that shouldn’t be thrown in a blender were thrown in a heavy duty blender.
They found an interesting twist on the product they were selling and now have far greater recognition of their brand as not only a blender, but as a heavy duty premium blender that is now and aspirational brand… not some boring blast from the past.
Of course, you probably don’t make blenders. But you may fix cars. So what do you do at your workshop with old discarded car parts that would normally just be thrown away? Do you build your own model of the Taj Mahal out of spark plugs? Or a tower of air filters? How about alternative uses for everyday items that you would normally throw away? It doesn’t have to be professional. In fact, the less professional it is, the better it will be for a local, regional audience. The key here is to zero in on the things you do that are a little different or quirky. Or take advantage of that one staff member you have who is not scared of the camera.
The golden rule is to not try and sell what you do. The second your content turns in to an ad, you lose your audience. I kind of like the Gary Vee idea of the jab, jab, jab, hook. The idea that you produce a great deal more entertaining or educational content than you do sales content. Give something for free, give another something for free, then give some else again for free, then maybe consider delivering some kind of product or sales message. Earn the right to sell to someone by regularly entertaining or informing them.
Have you got a social media posting strategy of your own? If you do, I’d love to hear about it via Clickstarter on Facebook or by email at darwin@clickstarter.com.au.
