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WHAT EVERY PAGE MANAGER NEEDS TO KNOW

SMALL BUSINESSSOCIAL MEDIA GUIDE

By GroSocial

SMALL BUSINESS

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SOCIAL MEDIA USE IS SKYROCKETING

While some social media posts are indeed goofy, it’s important to note that virtually

everyone you know is interacting on social media! The audience is huge. According

to eMarketer’s Worldwide Social Network Users: 2013

Forecast and Comparative Estimates report, one in four

people around the world will use social media in 2013.

In the United States, in 2014, 169.5 million people will

use social networks. The report predicts that number

will increase to 183.8 million social media users by 2017.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that creating a social me-

dia presence for your small business will expose you to millions of social media users.

What it does mean is that your current and future customers are most likely using social

networks. When you look at it this way, it makes sense to go where your customers go.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS LOCAL

Unless you have your sights on building a global business, small business owners

don’t need thousands of followers around the world. You need targeted followers

who have a genuine interest in what your business has to offer. Building a local fol-

lowing and offering exclusive promotions to encourage first-time or repeat busi-

ness is an effective way to grow your business.

Localizing social media isn’t as difficult as you may think. For example, if you are a

veterinarian in Midland, Texas, you could create a targeted Facebook ad campaign

CHAPTER 1WHY YOUR SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS SOCIAL MEDIA

Have you been sitting on the proverbial fence debating the merits of putting

your business on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest?

As you peruse your own personal social media accounts and wade through

an endless stream of goofy photos of your friends and mindless chitchat,

you may find yourself wondering “what’s the point?”

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to encourage Midland pet owners to “like” your Facebook page.

With Facebook advertising, you can hone in on specific demo-

graphics and interests so that only those users who meet your

exact criteria see your ad. In this case, you might target men

and women age 25 or older living in Midland, Texas (or even a

specific neighborhood or ZIP code) who have indicated an in-

terest in “dogs” or “cats.” If you don’t want to pay for an ad, you

could also get followers by including your social media profiles

on your business cards, signs, company cars, phone book ad-

vertisements, website, and email signature.

The goal is to get the right social media users to follow your

social media profiles. It’s quality over quantity that counts.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS INCREASINGLY USED FOR

SEARCH PURPOSES

Google and other search engines remain relevant. However, so-

cial media users often search for businesses from within their

desired social networks. If your business does not have a presence, it won’t be

found. In addition to searching on sites like Facebook or Twitter, users turn to re-

view sites such as Yelp to find and research local businesses.

YOUR SMALL BUSINESS MAY ALREADY BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA -

WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE!

Some review sites, including Yelp, will even create basic business pages for local

businesses, allowing users to post reviews. Whether you’ve created a social profile

or not, one may already exist for your business. Wouldn’t you rather be involved?

Wouldn’t you prefer to post your own interesting tidbits about your company and

its features and benefits rather than leaving your profile to chance? Wouldn’t you

like to be informed if a user posts a negative review about your business so that you

can rectify the situation or respond? This is yet another reason to get your business

involved in social media sooner rather than later.

enter your search SEARCH

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SOCIAL MEDIA IS MOBILE

According to comScore’s recent report on U.S. Smartphone

subscribers, as of April 2013, 138.5 million people in the U.S.

owned smartphones representing 58 percent of the mobile

market. Why should you care about smartphones? These

powerful devices are always connected to the Internet, and

always in a pocket, purse, or backpack - if not in the user’s

hands. Information is always just a tap away.

Imagine that you run a Mexican restaurant and a hungry poten-

tial customer is a few blocks away. She whips out her smart-

phone and searches for Mexican restaurants in your city. If your

restaurant does not have a website or social media presence, it

might not show up! If it does show up due to a generic listing, it may be competing

with other restaurants that have photos, menus, coupons, and other enticements.

DEVELOPING AN ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE COULD

PUT YOU AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION

With so many social media and Internet users flocking to social networking sites,

you’d think all small businesses would be taking advantage of the opportunities

these channels offer. However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 24.8 per-

cent of businesses surveyed in 2007 had a website. Though this data is old, a recent

article featured on USAToday discusses the 2013 National Small Business Associa-

tion Technology Survey which found that one in 10 small businesses don’t have a

website and that nearly 30 percent of them do not use social media.

If you want to tap into a local audience of current and future customers who

are using social media to find and interact with businesses like yours, you

need to both create a website, ideally one optimized for mobile users, and

get on social media.

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BLOGGING

Adding a blog to your website allows you to regularly

post new content such as announcements, articles,

and fun facts of interest to your customers. Blog posts

do not need to be long in order to be effective. A vet-

erinarian could post a friendly reminder around Hal-

loween about dogs eating chocolate or share an an-

ecdote about black cats. Blogging regularly is a great

way to keep your website fresh with new information

as well as with keyword phrases related to your small

business. For example, the blog post about dogs and chocolate

candy could be titled “A Friendly Reminder about Dogs and Choco-

late from Your Midland, Texas Veterinarian.” Blogging regularly also

shows search engines that the website is active and relevant.

In addition to serving as a platform for sharing information and

for attracting search engine traffic, blog readers can join the con-

CHAPTER 2CHOOSING A SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK

Now that you’ve decided to hop off of that fence and jump into social me-

dia, you’ll need to decide which social media networks to embrace. While

you could certainly join multiple social media networks, if you’re just starting

out, it’s wise not to spread yourself too thin. If you’re one of the 90 percent

of small businesses that does not have a website, start there. Make sure

that you select a website design firm that can optimize it for mobile users

(remember those smartphone users who are always connected?) as well as

include blog functionality (because blogging is social!). Once you have your

website up and running, pick one of the following social media types and

begin socializing. Once you’re comfortable with that channel and no longer

overwhelmed by it, pick another.

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versation if you allow commenting. If you do allow

commenting, make sure to respond promptly and

actively moderate your blog posts to prevent spam-

mers from taking over. Most blogging platforms in-

clude anti-spam tools to weed out most spam.

MICROBLOGGING

By now, you’re likely familiar with Twitter and its

140-character tweets. Because of its micro-sized

tweets, Twitter is known as a microblogging site.

While other microblogging sites exist, Twitter is the

best known.

Using Twitter in conjunction with a website and blog

is highly recommended. Whether you tweet links to

your latest blog posts or embed your Twitter feed

onto your blog, Twitter allows you to interact with

customers in real-time.

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages to using

Twitter is its Search tool. Simply search for your busi-

ness name or brand and find out what people are saying about you. This allows you

to monitor customer satisfaction and respond promptly. You can also use Twitter’s

search tool to find people looking for products and services like yours. For example,

you might enter “good vet in Midland” to see if anyone has posted questions such as

“Fluffy is sick. Does anyone know a good vet in Midland?”

FACEBOOK

Facebook is clearly the godfather of social media sites and may even be your first

choice for venturing into social networking for your small business. In order to set

up a Facebook business page, you will first need a personal Facebook account. Your

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Facebook personal profile and busi-

ness pages will be linked, but not

necessarily publicly linked. In other

words, your customers will not see

your personal posts and your per-

sonal friends and family members

will not see your business posts.

Creating a business page on Face-

book is a process with many consid-

erations. You may need professional

help to set it up. It’s also smart to use

online tools designed specifically for businesses that want to market on Facebook

such as GroSocial.com. These tools make creating attractive profiles, tabs, and spe-

cial offers a simple matter of drag and drop.

As you likely know, Facebook users log in and view a “news feed” which contains

status updates from their friends and brands that they follow. Users can “like,” share,

or comment on these updates (or all three). The more a user engages with another,

whether it’s a person or business, the more likely it is that their future posts will ap-

pear in the user’s news feed. Because Facebook uses engagement (likes, shares, and

comments) as a factor when it determines what to display in someone’s news feed,

it’s important to post updates that people will want to like, share, or comment on.

Keep engagement in mind whenever posting to Facebook and you’ll be more likely

to build an active community.

PHOTO-SHARING

Social networks such as Instagram and Pinterest are photo-sharing networks. These

networks can be a good choice for businesses that have highly visual graphics and

photos related to their products and services. Some ways to use photo-sharing

sites are listed below:

• Show behind-the-scenes photos of your business

• Create and share infographics

• Show pictures of your products

• Document a special event with photos

• Create step-by-step photo tutorials on how to use your product

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Blogs, microblogs, Facebook, and photo-sharing sites are

just the tip of the social media iceberg, but they’re a good

place to start for most small businesses. Dozens of other

options are available including social networks and forums

dedicated to music, video games, books, science, art, poli-

tics, travel, religion, genealogy, and even knitting.

In addition to becoming active on popular social networks such as Twitter

or Facebook, you may want to investigate social media niche sites related

to your business. For example, if you run a knitting and crochet shop, you’d

probably want to join Ravelry which has approximately 3 million registered

users all interested in knitting and crochet. Wikipedia has a huge list of cur-

rent social networking sites at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_

networking_websites.

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PLANNING YOUR STRATEGY

Getting on social media is the easy part; it’s the follow-through that tends to trip

people up. It doesn’t matter how pretty your Facebook page looks if you fail to post

content to it. It also doesn’t matter how many followers your page has if none of them

are potential customers. Obviously, you will need to build a Facebook profile. How-

ever, there’s more to consider than which image to upload as your cover picture. Be-

low are a few of the most important considerations beyond page design to address:

Who are You Targeting? Do you know who your ideal customer is? This goes back

to Marketing 101. You should have a solid idea as to who you want to target. Whether

your ideal customer is a man, woman,

senior citizen, teenager, bride-to-be,

lawyer, pet owner, foodie, stay-at-

home mom, college student, or video

game enthusiast, you need to spend

time figuring out who you want to tar-

get. Once you know, you’ll be better

able to find them and create messages

that will resonate with them. Without

this vital information, you are setting

your business up for a struggle. With

it, you have the foundation of a social

media plan.

CHAPTER 3PLANNING YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Now that you’ve decided which social networking site to start with, it’s time

to strategize. In the interest of simplicity, we’ll assume that you already have

a website and blog and that you’ve settled on using Facebook. Though we’ll

refer to Facebook as an example, these tips should apply to just about any

network you choose.

IDEAS

IDEA

S

IDEASID

EAS

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How Will You Find Followers? A common mistake many businesses make is to buy

followers. For five bucks on Fivrr, you can find someone who will be happy to provide

you with several hundred followers. The problem with these followers is that, even if

they are real people, they are not targeted. If you’re a veterinarian in Midland, Texas,

what good does it do to have college students in New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, and

London following your Facebook page?

If you’ve already figured out who you want to target, finding followers becomes much

easier. If you have a small budget, consider running a few Facebook ads to get “likes.”

This is an inexpensive, targeted approach mentioned earlier. Need to attract women

ages 55 and above to your crochet shop in San Diego? Start with your shop’s ZIP code,

target women ages 55 and up, and enter “crochet,” “crocheting,” “needlepoint,” and

“knitting” as interests. Create a Facebook ad with a great graphic and a call to action

such as “Click LIKE if you love to crochet!” This is simple, but it can quickly result in

an audience that meets your criteria. They live in your community and love to crochet;

when they need new patterns or supplies, which shop will be at the top of their minds?

Yours thanks to your social media presence and consistent, relevant interactions.

What if you don’t have a budget for Facebook ads? Another technique is to interact

on Facebook pages that your targeted audience is likely engaged with. Many busi-

ness pages allow users to post content, not just comment, on their pages. For ex-

ample, a veterinarian might become involved with the local animal shelter’s page. You

could offer helpful suggestions in response to questions, talk about the importance

of neutering and spaying pets, post tips about keep pets safe during a thunderstorm,

and so on. Keep your posts informative and helpful and avoid the temptation to bla-

tantly promote yourself. Users will recognize your professionalism and grow to trust

you. Many will follow you without prompting.

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What will you post? Don’t wait until you have a following to start posting content to

your Facebook page. While it may seem counterintuitive to post content to a non-

existent audience, you need to give users a reason to follow you. They’ll check out

your page to see what you’re all about. If you don’t have any interesting content on

your page, why would they want to follow it?

So, what should you post? Again, go back to your ideal customer. What is

your ideal customer interested in? If your ideal customer is a video game

enthusiast, you might post reviews of the latest video games, cheats, and

tips. If your ideal customer is a bride-to-be, you might post wedding plan-

ning tips, photos of gorgeous wedding gowns, wedding photography or

makeup tips, or healthy eating ideas. Use your ideal customer and his or

her interests as a guide.

Many businesses find it helpful to

follow a theme. For example, an

auto repair shop might designate

Mondays as “Muffler Mondays”

and post content related to ex-

haust leaks or discounts on muf-

fler repairs. Tuesdays could be

“Tune-Up Tuesdays.”

It’s also important to post content that your ideal customers

will “like,” share, or comment on. Cute pictures, interesting

infographics, controversial questions, caption contests, and

polls are all good ways to drive engagement. Not only does

engagement affect whether or not your future posts will

eventually show up in their news feeds, but their liking, shar-

ing, and commenting exposes your posts to their social me-

dia followers, some of whom could be potential customers.

As these secondary people see your post, they, too, might

like, share, or comment on it. From there, their followers will

see it. This is how social media spreads.

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HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU POST? After deciding what

to post, how often should you post? Set a realistic sched-

ule that you can accomplish and take care not to overdo

it. You might start with one or two posts a day. No matter

what you determine will be best for your business, try to

post consistently as your followers will eventually begin to

look forward to your posts.

As enthusiastic as you may be about starting your

Facebook page, be careful not to over post or over

promote. Social networking users use sites like Facebook to hang out with

their buddies, goof off, relax, and occasionally find solutions to their prob-

lems. If they’ve trusted you enough to allow you into their inner circles,

they may tolerate the occasional exclusive offer (and even expect them),

but they won’t tolerate an endless barrage of self-promotion. Use Face-

book to share useful information, educate, answer questions, and continue

building trust with your followers

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HOW MUCH TIME DOES IT TAKE TO MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA?

An IntersectionConsulting.com infographic posted on Social Media Today breaks a

typical social media workflow down into 11 components and then assigns an esti-

mated amount of time per week for each component as follows:

• Updates - 4 hours

• Blogging (planning, writing, and publishing posts) - 7.5 hours

• Finding and planning content to share - 4 hours

• Curating and sharing content - 2.5 hours

• Interacting with your followers - 4 hours

• Monitoring brand mentions - 2.5 hours

• Developing promotions, contests, ads, and other campaigns - 2.5 hours

• Community growth - 2.5 hours

• Managing and adjusting strategy - 2.5 hours

• Analytics - 2.5 hours

• Resolving and mitigating unexpected problems - 4 hours

The workflow above requires about 38 and a half hours each week. While your

social media strategy may be more or less labor intensive, this sample workflow

highlights an important question: Where will you find an extra 38 hours each week?

As a small business owner, you already wear plenty of hats, is social media manager

one of them?

While some businesses may spend 38 hours on social media, they’re in the minority.

According to a survey from Vertical Response, most businesses spend less than 10

CHAPTER 4SHOULD YOU OUTSOURCE SOCIAL MEDIA

OR MANAGE IT IN-HOUSE?

Creating and managing social media sites is a big task. Not only must you

create content such as blog posts or status updates on a regular, if not daily,

basis, you also need to be available to respond to other social media users.

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ADVANTAGES:

• Employees understand the business and its customers

• It’s generally easy for employees to take photos throughout the workday

• Adding social media responsibilities could add interest to an otherwise mundane job

DISADVANTAGES:

• Employees are pressed for time and may not prioritize social media

• Though they may be active social media users, employees may be ill-equipped to

manage business pages

• Employees may spend too much time managing social media to the detriment of

their other duties

• The cost of a part- or full-time social media manager may be more than the cost

of outsourcing

Many of these disadvantages can be overcome with train-

ing, planning, and clear priorities. Digital agencies

and consultants often offer social media man-

agement services to small businesses for a flat

monthly fee. Outsourcing can also avoid many

of the disadvantages of in-sourcing while pro-

hours per week on social media and only 7 percent spend more than 21 hours per

week. This same survey reveals that the most time-consuming activities were find-

ing and posting content followed by learning and education, analytics, and following

the competition. The least time-consuming activity involved answering questions on

social media.

THE IN-SOURCING VS. OUTSOURCING DILEMMA

As you consider the amount of work a typical social media workflow requires, you

may conclude that you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to run your busi-

ness and social media. The next question begs an answer: If not you, then who?

ADVANTAGES

DISADVANTAGES

If you have employees or are willing to hire a part-time social media manager,

it may make sense to manage social media in-house. A few of the advantages

and disadvantages of keeping social media in-house include the following:

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viding you with consistent and reliable social media services. But outsourcing also

has a few disadvantages including a potential lack of authenticity (after all, no one

knows your business better than you do) and concerns about who will address issues

that customers raise on social media. If you do opt to outsource social media, you’ll

want to discuss any concerns you may have with the agency to ensure that nothing

is left to chance.

The decision to do it yourself or outsource social media is up to you. If you

lack the time, skills, or interest in doing it yourself, then outsourcing is prob-

ably the way to go. On the other hand, if you love the idea of interacting with

your customers in the digital realm, you could find that managing your own

social media efforts is extremely rewarding.

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CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA CALENDAR

Before you start your search for content to share, it’s helpful to have a basic plan in

place that addresses the type of content to post and when to post it. With five busi-

ness days in the week, you could create five categories (one for each day) and rotate

through them each week. For example, a personal trainer might focus on abs on

Mondays, leg exercises on Tuesday, the gluts on Wednesday, cross-training on Thurs-

day, and nutrition on Friday. A simple system like this ensures that you always know

where to start. Your followers may even begin to anticipate your posts based on the

consistency you show week after week.

In addition to creating a schedule based on the categories you want to cover, you

may also want to identify the different types of content you’d like to share such as:

• Insights and tips

• Thought-provoking questions

• Polls

• Cartoons

• Blog posts

• Videos

• Infographics

• Relevant reports, statistics, trends, and news items

• Photos

• Promotions (coupons, contests, and other campaigns)

CHAPTER 5SHARING ENGAGING CONTENT

You’ve selected a social networking platform, planned your basic strategy,

and have assigned someone the task of managing your social media efforts.

Assuming that you’ll be handling social media in-house, the next step is to

share engaging content. We’ve touched on what to post briefly including the

importance of sharing content that will encourage engagement. Here are a

few more ideas for finding and creating content to share on social media.

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Just as you rotate through

the various categories each

week, you may want to ro-

tate through the various con-

tent types. This adds variety

while keeping your messag-

ing consistent. For example,

if you’ve decided to focus on

abs each Monday, one Mon-

day you might share an ab-

dominal exercise you can do

when sitting at the desk. The

next week you might post a funny cartoon that pokes fun at six-pack abs. The next

week you might share some research that highlights the benefits of strengthening

your core. The following week you might post a promotion for people who want to

tone their abs in time for beach weather.

By identifying categories and content types, you can quickly create a content calendar.

SHARING INTERNAL CONTENT

If you are already blogging and have recently expanded into Facebook or some other

social network, you already have a great deal of internal content that you could tap

into. It’s also likely that many of your social media followers have not discovered

your blog yet, making sharing both new and older blog posts an excellent choice.

Again, you’ll need variety, so don’t rely solely on sharing links to your blog. Otherwise,

there’s no real reason for people to follow you on Facebook or Twitter as they could

just subscribe to your blog or visit it manually.

What other materials have you created for your business? Look through old news-

letters, special reports, and fact sheets to see if you could repurpose any of that

content. Remember, you don’t need to share an entire newsletter or special report,

though you could. You may be able to pull some interesting fun facts from each and

spread them out over the course of an entire month.

In addition to repurposing existing content, you’ll likely want to create original con-

tent, too. While your posts should be well written, you don’t need to be a writer to

CALENDAR1

8

14

20

2

9

15

21

3

10

16

22

4

11

17

23

5

12

18

24

6

13

19

25

7

1

1

1

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create interesting content for your social media sites. When you’re planning your

editorial calendar, brainstorm ideas for blog posts, tips, and thought-provoking ques-

tions. You may be surprised at how much you have to say. Refer back to this list

whenever you are at a loss for words and start writing.

FACEBOOK TABS

It’s not just words, think visually! Snap photos related to your business and

share periodically. Photos help make your business real. Short videos are

also fun. If you will be featuring recognizable people in your photos or vid-

eos, make sure to get a signed model release form.

Another form of internal content

involves coupons and promo-

tions. There are various strate-

gies you could use including

building Facebook tabs, creat-

ing an online coupon, or holding

some sort of contest. You could

also use Facebook tabs as a lead

generation strategy. If all of this

sounds complicated, it doesn’t

need to be. Services such as

GroSocial.com make it easy to

create campaigns, promotions,

and lead generation forms.

SHARING EXTERNAL CONTENT

Not only can you share your own content, you can also share external content such as

YouTube videos, interesting blog posts written by others, recent press releases cov-

ering an item of interest to your followers, research, and more. Naturally, you’ll want

to give credit where credit is due and not infringe on anyone’s copyright. When you

copy and paste a link into Facebook’s status box, Facebook will automatically find a

thumbnail and include a short summary of the linked content. There’s room at the top

for you to add a comment if desired.

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SCHEDULING CONTENT

Whether you’re planning to share internal or external content, consider preschedul-

ing some of it. You can preschedule posts directly on Facebook by writing the post as

normal and then clicking the icon that looks like a clock. From there, you can specify

the exact date and time your post should be published. You can do the same for Twit-

ter; however, you’ll need to use a third party tool to schedule Tweets.

With a content calendar and scheduling tool, you could theoretically spend

a few hours at the beginning of the month planning, finding, and schedul-

ing the majority of your content. This can be a real timesaver for busy small

business owners. For example, when searching for interesting YouTube vid-

eos to share related to your niche, you may find half a dozen great ones.

Instead of copying and pasting their links into a spreadsheet so you’ll re-

member them later, simply space them out over the course of a month or

two by using the scheduling tool.

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About GroSocialMaking the decision to jump off the fence and onto the social media bandwagon is

a big decision that could help grow your business. Numerous options exist including

blogging, microblogging, Facebook, and photo-sharing sites as well as niche net-

works and blogs. No matter where you choose to start, you’ll need a plan, and you

may need to get external help. One place to seek help is GroSocial.com. GroSocial

offers a suite of affordable tools for small business owners to create attractive Face-

book and Twitter profiles, Facebook tabs, opt-in forms, coupons, and promotions as

well as manage content and much more. Sign up for a free trial account today and

build a social presence with confidence!

Sources

EMarketer: Social Networking Reaches Nearly One in Four Around the World

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-Networking-Reaches-Nearly-One-Four-

Around-World/1009976

ComScore Reports: April 2013 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/6/comScore_Reports_

April_2013_U.S._Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share

USA Today: Digital Tools Play Big Role in Small Business Growth

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/10/06/smart-small-business-

digital-tools/2922423/

Wikipedia: List of Social Networking Websites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Social Media Workflow (Infographic)

http://socialmediatoday.com/brianna5mith/1422451/social-media-workflow-info-

graphic

Vertical Response: Survey Shows Small Businesses Investing More in Social Media,

But Juggling Resources

http://www.verticalresponse.com/about/press/small-business-social-media-survey-

results-infographic