5 Tips: Starting a New Business Social Media Account
There’s a reason most brands have social media accounts today. It can be an effective tool for marketing and building a community around your product. But starting a social media account as a small business owner can be daunting. Here are 5 tips to starting out:
Be consistent with your username
Social media is all about being found. Whether you decide to focus on just a few social media sites (which I’d recommend) or you do them all, pick a name that is available across all platforms. This ensures that your followers can find you on the other sites. Even if you don’t plan to use that platform, still create a username. You never know when that platform will fall out of favor and you need to jump ship.
Follow similar accounts
Creating a community is so important. When you first start out, you need to gauge what others are doing, what is getting likes, and what’s trending. Trending audio / formats is an easy way to get views. By finding accounts that you want to be similar to, you are able to see what’s going on in your niche. Engage, research, and then do.
Create a schedule
Being consistent is key. There is so much advice about there about how often to post, which day of the week, and what time. At the end of the day, your followers just want consistent content. Maybe that is multiple times a day, once a day, a few times a week or even weekly. Do what you can at the beginning. Be consistent. As you learn what works, then you can adjust.
Save content you like
Similar to tip #2, you’ll want to save content. Send it in a message to yourself, save the audio, save the post, whatever. Just save it. On those days when you have no idea what to post, review what you’ve saved. Audio is an easy way to get inspiration - you don’t have to think much about the overall vision as it’s already laid out for you. Key message: save what you like and then use it to create your own content.
Stick to 2 - 3 main topics
This one is going to be tricky. If you only ever use a private account you might want to post about your whole day, a fun photo, friends, a birthday, your kiddos, your pets. STOP. Remember, this is a business account. You need to figure out what your main focus is. Post or re-post content that is only related to those topics. Two to three main topic areas is ideal. Likely you will be focusing on your products, the industry your products fall under, and a topic related to your product (for instance if you sell dog leashes then you might post dog content).
