As a small business owner, you will already know how important it is to engage with your customers in-store, but it is also important to engage with them on social media. The key to successful marketing is understanding what your target audience wants and where they tend to hang out, nowadays most people spend their free time online.  

Having a great image to post on social media is not always enough to grab someone’s attention when browsing online, this is why it is equally as important to have a relevant caption that relates to the image and your audience. Our social media experts at BeMySocial have put together some helpful tips for small business owners on how they can engage with their target audience.

Educate Your Audience

One way of engaging with your audience through social media copy is by educating them. Providing your followers with content that can educate them on something new will make them feel they are getting something back from following you. A great way of doing this is by basing a post around a product with a follow-through link to your website, so if the customer is interested, they know where they can purchase your product.

If your business has a website, why not consider adding a news section to post blogs relating to your business. With effective search engine optimisation (SEO), not only is this a great way of drawing people to your website, but you can also use your blog posts for a social media posts. To learn more about SEO, read our previous article.

Encourage Engagement

Now that your business has entered the world of social media, your brand needs to tap into an audience that they probably haven’t reached through other mediums. Most small business owners use their social media accounts to talk primarily about themselves online and the products or services they provide. Which is a great thing to do as you can showcase what you do, but if you only do that your followers are likely to get bored pretty quickly. This can also scare off new followers when they look at your profile, as they don’t see any value in following your account.

Depending on the tone of your brand and your profession, try to add a personality to your business, with a friendlier approach to your posts that are not always based around the business. User-generated content is a great way to get engagement from your followers; this can be anything from customer appreciation posts to relevant product giveaways.

Use Hashtags & Emojis

There was a moment in time when everyone was using hashtags all the time on every post they did. You might be surprised to know that hashtags do still work and people do still use them to discover new content. Therefore, it is up to you as a small business owner to decide whether your brand needs to use hashtags to gain traction. If you do decide to use them it is important to do your research on which hashtags are relevant to your industry sector, to make sure you are attracting your target audience. Many small businesses use hashtags as an opportunity to draw in a wider audience looking for new content, take a look at your competition and see how they operate the use of hashtags and if it works for them.

Emojis in your copy also help to make your post stand out and add an element of fun to your content. It is vital to check that before you use an emoji on your business account, it means what you think it means.

How Be My Social Can Help

All of the above are great ways a small business owner can create good copy for their social media platforms, but do you have the time to generate engaging content every week?

Here at BeMySocial, we understand that not all small business owners have the time to create and track their social media. As a digital marketing agency, we are already helping new businesses and brands like yours to improve every aspect of design, marketing and communications. It’s time to join them. Let us research your brand and deliver new ideas to take your business to the next level. For more information on our services, fill in our online form. A member of our team will shortly be in touch. Or, follow our Instagram for daily helpful tips for small business owners on how to improve their marketing strategy.