Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses

With Custom Audiences, you can create extremely targeted ads, allowing you to improve their effectiveness and your conversion rates! Here's a look at some ways that you can put these audiences to work for you:

A significant percentage of your website visitors won't buy on their first visit –a number will abandon their carts. With a Custom Audience, though, you can reach out and target these visitors, reminding them of a purchase that they may have forgotten or offering incentives for them to revisit your website and complete their purchase.

If you have an email list, and some of your subscribers aren't opening your emails, you can target them as well. Consider showing them what you have to offer. Choose an image, find a great key message, and then create a Custom Audience using their email addresses to target them with specific ads. Keep in mind that these lists should only include people who have consented to be contacted by you. If they opt out, you should make sure they are no longer included in the lists.

Have some customers who haven't made a purchase in a while? You can use Custom Audiences to win them back. Consider sharing exciting news about your product or offering a discount coupon.

In the decades since the popularization of the Internet, our physical lives and digital lives have become deeply intertwined. This is in large part thanks to the rise of the smartphone; when you're hungry, you can Google "pizza near me" and find the nearest pizzeria. Locally-based businesses can take advantage of how integrated the Web is with our everyday lives to find and keep clients. Social media platforms may have billions of users, but today the focus is on the users who matter to local businesses. This guide will help you find and interact meaningfully with clients in your area by using social media.

When a client uses the check-in feature, your location will be broadcast to their followers and friends. That's great news for you. You're not only getting free advertising for your business; you're getting one of the best kinds of advertising – a recommendation from a trusted source. You want to incentivize this behavior, so opt to offer check-in deals. Own a restaurant? Offer a free coffee or soda with a check-in. Other venues might offer discounts, coupons, or other small tokens of appreciation for check-ins.

Instagram is an incredible platform for locally-based businesses. A vast majority of Instagram users follow at least one business account, and most Instagram users say they've made a purchase based on the posts they've seen on the platform. The pictorial nature of the site gives you plenty of opportunities to showcase what makes your business different from other local or national companies. Take videos of your manufacturing process and of the people who work in the company. Take photos of your end products, artisanal work, delicious food, and light fixtures you've installed – whatever your business does, showcase it!

Twitter lists are a useful tool for learning about the news, events, and movers and shakers relevant to your local concerns. You can make very broad lists, including almost every Twitter user in your city or neighborhood. You can make smaller lists, like "Local Craft Brew Lovers," catered to interests more relevant to your business niche. Using these lists, you can stay on top of what's relevant locally, riffing on what's exciting to people right now to create pertinent social media posts. There are often Twitter lists readily available in any given community that you can join; if there aren't, create your own. The community will thank you for it, and clout isn't a bad thing in the world of social media!

Perfecting the art of the hashtag is an essential piece of the local social media puzzle. You'll be well-served by following a lot of relevant local businesses and using the Twitter lists mentioned above. Look at what hashtags people in your area are using and jump on board. Finding the sweet spot for hashtags can be a bit tricky – you want to use hashtags that are broad enough that people search for them but niche enough that you won't be drowned out in the noise. Fortunately, most platforms give you ample room to use a number of different hashtags, so try things that you think will be relevant to your local niche and use analytics to parse down what's working and what isn't.

No two people use social media the same way. People join different Facebook groups, follow different Instagram influencers, and watch different Twitter trends. The Twitter lists mentioned above can help you glean this information; there are a few other ways you can do it, too. Ask your customers where they spend time online and who they follow – you can ask in person or through a survey. Conduct a search for groups relevant to your interests. If clients are interested in purchasing your products or services, there's likely some overlap. Have you found that there aren't a lot of local groups catered to your interests? Make one yourself. The best place for your customers to hang out is in a space created by you.

The methods that have been evaluated so far are all close to free or free; buying ads is a totally different way of getting local clients through social media. The big players in the industry all have targeted pay-per-click ads. The targeting means that you can narrow your advertising down to very specific demographics: local people who have already expressed interest in similar products or services to yours, for example. Social media advertising campaigns are best used as part of a holistic advertising strategy, featuring things like multivariate landing page campaigns. Going into that would lead us off topic, but it's something to keep in mind.