Low Cost Social Media Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses

The key to social media marketing success for small companies lies is figuring out how to leverage the right strategies and tools.

If you are a small business, you need to know how to succeed in social media management.

Research Your Audience

First, you need to understand your audience in order to be successful in low-cost social media marketing.

Having a good understanding of your audience will ensure that you can create targeted campaigns to specifically reach people who are the most likely to buy your products and services.

Good targeting increases your chances of driving conversions and reduces the amount of money you waste interacting with people who won’t convert.

Creating a user persona will give you a complete overview of the kind of customers you want to reach. Some of the information you’ll need about your target audience includes:

• Demographic data: Age, gender, etc.

• Location: Where your customers are

• Likes: What they enjoy doing, their hobbies, interests, and favorite brands

• Dislikes: What they dislike about other companies

• Behavior: How much time they spend online and which channels they use

Having a good overview of your target audience will make it easier for you to target the right people through your social media campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. This practice can also give you an idea about which channels you should leverage to get a better ROI.

For instance, if a majority of your customers are under the age of 19, then TikTok is likely to be a good bet. To target people aged 25-34, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter can be better choices.

Choose Your Social Platforms

You may need to be active on more than one channel to ensure that you’re able to reach and engage your target audience. However, it’s important to know which channels are most likely to deliver results.

For low-cost social media marketing, choose your platforms wisely and run highly-targeted campaigns. We’re sure that you won’t want to waste money on running ad campaigns on channels that your ideal customers aren’t going to visit.

To figure out which platforms you should focus on, think about the following:

Your brand’s image

What kind of online reputation are you building?

If you want to be seen as fun and young, then TikTok and Instagram might be good choices. If you want to create a professional B2B image, you should try using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Your Competitors

Analyzing your competitors’ social media profiles and marketing strategies is a good way to determine where your customers are.

Your Products and Services

If you sell insurance plans, visual platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest are less likely to drive good results for your brand. If you sell makeup products, then creating video tutorials on YouTube and Instagram is likely to attract your ideal buyers.

With so many social platforms to choose from, here’s a quick insight into the most popular options available in the market:

• LinkedIn: The most popular platform for professionals with over 3 million company pages and over 690 million members, LinkedIn is ideal for B2B companies.

• Facebook: The social media platform with the broadest reach, Facebook offers excellent targeting opportunities and helps you reach a wide section of consumers.

• Instagram: The ultimate visual platform, Instagram has more than 1 billion users who frequently interact with brands as well.

• Twitter: The news platform, Twitter is ideal for connecting with people through quick announcements and news commentary.

• TikTok: This video platform is ideal for you if you’re trying to reach a younger audience or build a fun personality for your brand.

Create a Content Strategy

Once you’ve identified the best channels to use for low cost social media marketing, you should build a content strategy .

Having a content marketing strategy in place will help you ensure that you’re building and nurturing good connections with your target audience. The better planning you do, the easier it will be to improve your conversion rate.

Your content strategy should include a plan to create different types of content. This includes writing informative blog posts regularly so that you always have valuable content to share on social media and drive traffic to your website.

You should also plan what type of content you’re going to create for each of your social media profiles. For Instagram, you may decide to publish 3-4 photos a week along with a handful of Instagram Stories and Reels, and the occasional IGTV video.

Creating a solid content strategy will help you ensure that you’re taking full advantage of all of the content formats and features available on each social media platform.

To design a successful content strategy, keep the following tips in mind.

Decide What You’re Going to Share

Your social media accounts need to be more than just platforms meant to advertise your products.

You should focus on creating and sharing valuable content that can entertain, inform, and educate your audience. Make sure that you’re posting plenty of engaging content like “how-to” videos, mini blog posts on LinkedIn, tutorials, guides, and actionable tips.

Keep an Eye on Your Competitors

Take inspiration from your competitors who are acing the game of social media marketing.

If they’re using certain kinds of content on specific platforms, should you leverage them too? Which types of posts are driving maximum engagement for them? Is there anything your competitors aren’t doing but you can do to stand out?

Adapt Your Content to Suit the Platform

Every social media platform supports a different kind of content. Instagram is ideal for sharing photos and videos. TikTok only supports a specific kind of video content and Twitter is all about shorter posts.

While repurposing content is possible, you can’t just copy-paste your content from one platform to the next. You need to optimize it for each platform.

Constantly Collect Data

Keep an eye on metrics like reach, follower growth, and engagement levels. You can use the analytics available on different social channels to see which of your posts are driving maximum engagement. Remember, what you measure grows. So even if you don't understand them at first, you'll be able to improve numbers as you go along.

Plan a Content Posting Schedule

You won’t always have the time to create and publish amazing content. You are busy, after all. If you’re not taking the time to plan your social calendar in advance, you are planning to fail.

Planning your content calendar in advance is a great way to design campaigns around specific times of the year and boost sales. There are many tools out there that allow you to schedule posts for specific days and times.

Scheduling your social media posts means will help you ensure that your content gets posted at the right time to drive maximum engagement.

Hire a low-cost social media manager

If this seems overwhelming, or you don't have the time to dedicate to social media, The PM Agency can help you with consistent posts to engage with potential clients. We specialize in starting your social media presence off on the right foot.

Schedule a consultation now.