Is Social Media Good for Small Businesses?

As a small business owner, you're always looking for ways to grow your business and increase your visibility. In today's world, social media can be a powerful tool to help you achieve those goals. 

But is social media good for small businesses in particular? Let’s dive in.

Advantages of Social Media for Small Businesses

Social media offers several advantages for small businesses looking to grow their brand and reach new customers.

Cost-effective Marketing

One of the biggest advantages of social media is that it provides cost-effective marketing options. With low-cost advertising options and the potential for organic reach through content sharing, small businesses can maximize their marketing efforts without breaking the bank.

Increased Brand Awareness

Social media also offers the potential for increased brand awareness. Viral content has the potential to reach millions of people, and social media makes it easy to share promotional materials and reach a wider audience.

Improved customer engagement and relationship building

Social media allows small businesses to engage directly with customers, provide real-time feedback and customer service, and build stronger relationships. This can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.

Networking and Partnership Opportunities

Finally, social media provides networking and partnership opportunities, allowing small businesses to connect with other businesses, collaborate on projects and events, and build valuable relationships.

Potential Drawbacks of Social Media for Small Businesses

While social media offers many benefits, there are also potential drawbacks that small businesses should be aware of.

Time Investment

Managing multiple social media platforms can be time-consuming, especially if you're trying to keep up with trends and algorithms. Small businesses may need to invest significant time and resources to make the most of social media.

Negative Publicity

Social media also has the potential to generate negative publicity, whether it's through negative reviews and comments or public relations issues. Small businesses need to be prepared to handle these situations and respond appropriately.

Security and Privacy Concerns

Finally, social media raises security and privacy concerns, with the risk of hacking and data breaches. Small businesses need to take steps to protect sensitive information and safeguard their online presence, such as two-factor authentication.

Strategies for Maximizing the Benefits of Social Media for Small Businesses

To maximize the benefits of social media for your small business, there are several strategies you can employ.

Selecting the Right Platforms

Start by identifying your target audience and evaluating the demographics and features of different social media platforms. This will help you choose the right platforms to focus on.

Creating a Social Media Plan

Develop a social media plan that sets clear goals and objectives, and includes a content calendar to help you stay on track.

Utilizing Analytics and Insights

Use analytics and insights to track your performance metrics and adjust your strategies based on data. This will help you make the most of your social media efforts and achieve your business goals.

Contact Maven and Muse Media to Take Your Small Business Social to the Next Level

So, is social media good for small businesses? The answer is yes but with some important caveats. By weighing social media's pros and cons, assessing your business needs and capabilities, and developing a strategic approach to social media marketing, you can leverage this powerful tool to grow your business and achieve your goals.

As a social media management service provider, we are dedicated to helping small businesses make the most of social media. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you achieve success on social media.

There Isn't A One Size Fits All Social Media Strategy

I’ve been doing a lot of teaching lately, and a question that gets asked me in many different ways is, “How often do I need to post to be effective at this whole social media marketing thing?”  And unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size fits all strategy for each business.  There isn’t a plug-and-play method that is effective because what works for one business most likely won’t work for another business because the community of the account is different.  But here are a few things I do share that I consider the bare minimum part of a social media marketing strategy: posting three times a week to your feed is the bare minimum, checking in with your community on stories once a day a few times a week, I would encourage you to daily check in but know that this isn’t always feasible for business owners. When you are sharing a post to your feed a quick and easy way to share your story is to send the post to your story via the paper airplane at the bottom of the post. 

A few ideas for your story are anything behind the scenes, packing orders, setting up for an event, unboxing new merchandise, and asking your community questions. 

I also advise and use as part of my stories strategies with clients using the stories for market research. If you are trying to decide between an offering, packaging, or anything like that, ask your community. Humans are very good at giving their opinions and usually always seek opportunities to give them. 

I have tried to offer “one size fits all” social media templates, which fall flat because the voice is lost. When ’ is lost. When the post templates are done for everyone, they don’t feel like they need to contribute to the post, and the connection to the community isn’t there.  It all comes down to the intention of putting up the post in the first place. If you don’t know the intention behind sharing the post, your audience won’t know what to do with it. When you are posting to post because an expert told you that for social media success, you should be posting seven times a week between these times, and then you need to throw in a 6.2-second reel, not a 6.5-second but specifically a 6.2-second reel with trending audio that has less than 900 videos attached to them every other day.  How exhausting! 

Ok, there are many things wrong with this approach; first of all, the definition of “success” qualifies as a successful post to one business owner but most likely isn’t the same as “success” to another business owner.  You don’t know what the account owner's definition of success means. 

Consider this next part your hall pass/permission slip from a social media expert to do whatever the fuck you want on your social media feed. The rules for marketing your business is there are no rules.  Only want to connect with your community once a week or whenever it feels authentic to you to connect with them when you have something to say. Do that.  

You love making short-form videos and want to do that daily with voiceovers instead of trending audio great; you do you.

Here’s the thing, if you’re reading this, the chances are that you are a business owner who is running a business and is also operating as their business’s marketing director, content creator, and social media manager. This is your hall pass/permission slip to post in the hallways of social media, whatever feels good to you whenever you have the time to schedule and post to social media. 

I want you to know that your priority is to keep your business running. The secondary is to keep people in the know about your business. The minimum posting suggestion of 3 times a week helps your account to stay top of mind for people IF social media is your one marketing avenue because, at the time of this writing, the Instagram algorithm can have a delay of up to 72 hours for people in your community that are not interacting with your content regularly. 

My other recommendation is to become best friends with your social media analytics and frequently check in to see what content people enjoy and interact with. When you get in your analytics and see what and where your community is hanging out on social media and measure if that is similar to where you like to hang out and what you enjoy posting, it becomes easier to identify how often and where to post your content—removing this pressure to be creating more and more fresh content constantly.  Recycling content is totally ok- hardly anyone is going to even know.

Running a business is tough; please come back to this post when you need a hall pass/permission slip to do your digital marketing YOUR way, not necessarily an “experts” way who has an entire social team behind them.  You are a small business doing what you can marketing wise is better than doing nothing at all. 

Is Posting At A Certain Time On Instagram Relevant For Success

FAQ: What time should I be posting to Instagram?

Answer: Whenever you have the time.

I'd like you to hear me out.

The time you posted actually USED to be a thing, but then a significant world event happened, and we were scrolling at all times.

So...

The time that you POST is NOT more important than

👉 Showing up consistently

👉 Taking the time to create SCROLL-STOPPING Content

👉 Taking care of your IRL priorities

i.e.:

❣️ Running your actual business

❣️ Spending time with loved ones

❣️ Your health <mental & physical>

⏰ The posting time is the tiniest really irrelevant detail in this whole social media marketing thing. ⏰

Sure there are better times, but it's not universal. But you've gotta get down and dirty with your insights and analytics because accounts, like humans, are different.

If you're consistently showing up with good content, which happens when you're taking care of yourself <I've got an honorary Ph.D. in this category because when I don’t take care of myself, it shows in the content>, your audience will show up.

People can smell the burnout of inauthentic posts to post and appease the algorithm through their phone screens. Just so you know. 🤭

But if this answer isn't enough for you, post as early as you can in the day. If you're in a committed relationship with your analytics and insights, find the largest number of your followers> look at the time> and schedule posts 30 minutes to an hour before that.

Bottom line- if you're running your social while wearing all your other business hats, create a posting schedule that aligns with your REAL TIME LIFE because done is better than perfect, and you gotta show up if you wanna be seen.

Ten Cyber Weekend Promotions That Don't Involve Discounts

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday promotions do NOT need to involve discounts. Again, for the people in the nose bleeds, Cyber Weekend promotions DO NOT need to involve discounts.

If you’ve been here a while, you know I have a love/hate relationship with discounts. Discounts are great once in a bit, but when your product is constantly discounted, people will never pay full price for it, and you’ll have a hard time raising your prices. 

My product clients offer a once-a-year killer Cyber weekend promotion, AND our customers know that we only offer this deal once a year. This means weeks before we get emails and DM’s asking how and when the discount code will be released. 

With all this said, here are a few Cyber Weekend Promotion ideas that DO NOT involve discounting anything you offer; instead, consider promoting what you already have instead of spending time you do not have to create something new. 

The point is to re-create something shiny and irresistible that your audience can’t get enough of. 

Here we go….

1. Promote an offering that already exists, which you do not promote much. 

2. Discount to a Future Event. Create a one-day workshop for Q1 2023 and use Cyber Weekend as an opportunity for pre-registration.

3. Include a FREE product with a determined monetary value; this should be something you already have. A service example would be an old digital download that is valuable but not getting as much traction (including what this product usually sells for). A product example would be creating a “mystery grab bag” of products that aren’t moving, but you don’t want to throw away with a $100 purchase.

4. Offer a gift certificate w/min the purchase amount, encouraging people to return and make another purchase.

5. *Product Seller* Offer a return coupon code for FREE SHIPPING because no one enjoys paying for shipping.

6. Add an extra coaching or accountability session with you.

7. Create a new bundle of content that already exists. Look at the content you’ve already created which has never been bundled together. 

8. Add bonus download for a class. This could include a checklist, mantras, or whatever is relatable to your business.

9. Consider offering a different weekend promotion to keep people engaged. (Include this news in your Cyber Weekend email, but only give away what the promotions are on social media)

10. If time allows, create a new digital download, service, or special edition product available for Cyber Weekend only. 

We are being conditioned that for social media marketing success, we constantly need to be coming up with and creating “new” content all the time, but sometimes especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, we can repackage what already exists without having to create some NEW or offer a deep discount.

Good luck this Cyber Weekend!

Social Media And Digital Marketing Work Together; It's Not An Either Or Situation

On Sunday morning, while scrolling through my social feeds, an influencer I follow with 4 million followers on Tik Tok was locked out of her account. I watched her full mental breakdown play out on her Instagram stories on how she will communicate with her audience. “Tik Tok is how I pay my bills.” Is something that she kept saying over and over through her tears. Watching her mental breakdown was heartbreaking and reassuring that when it comes to your business marketing, YOU CAN NOT continue putting all of your “eggs in one basket.”

She gets many bookings and collaborations through her Tik Tok account. TikTok is actually how she made a name for herself, to begin with. Then, go in one Sunday morning to post content and be locked out. It is literally my worst nightmare as a Social Media Manager.

 In one of the final slides of her story, she was begging her followers to say something to Tik Tok and asking for any contacts at Tik Tok to try and make the situation right or at least petition them to turn her account back on.

 The truth is Tik Tok, Instagram, and Facebook, all platforms, don’t owe you anything. They are businesses. They own your followers. If you go against the Terms and Conditions, that thing you’ve signed without reading, they can shut you down, and no amount of petitioning could get you turned back on. The only way you can own the right to communicate with anyone is to have them in your database and email list. I have been encouraging clients and non-clients with any following to build out an opt-in for an email database. Even if they never send a single email (a tale for another time), at least you have a way to communicate with your audience/following should something like this ever happen to you.

 I see you working really hard on your digital marketing, I am encouraging you to find a way to build your email list. Even if you don’t send out a single email if you get locked out of one of your social accounts, you will always have somewhere to begin. 

Here are a few suggestions to begin building your email list:

Add an opt-in pop-up to your website. 

Ensure you gather email addresses when people request to join your Facebook Group. 

Keep your email spreadsheet updated regularly. 

Sprinkle in Social Posts where the call to action is to sign up for your email list. 

As we begin to wrap up 2022 and think about 2023, I want to offer a challenge to you to become more conscious of building out your list. 

I do not want to watch, you have a complete mental crying breakdown on a Sunday morning on your Instagram Stories ever. :o) 

P.S. She did get full access and allowed back into her account, a happy denouement to an emotional conflict.

The Only Social Media Algorithm Hack You Need Is Consistency

I don't know about you, but there's nothing I love more than when random people pop up in my DM's to share with me all these social media “hacks” that are guaranteed to bring you so many followers, traffic, and how to keep the algorithm happy.

Y'all, I don't care about social media algorithms, and you shouldn't either. I feel like all of this hyper-focused energy on trying to keep the algorithm happy has made us lose our joy for why we joined Instagram or any other social media platform in the first place.

On your gravestone, it is not going to read, “ Here lies XX, they had 100K followers and a viral Reel in 2022.”

 The only “hack” that I have found that brings in more leads and has the potential to triple sales is

C O N S I S T E N C Y.

 I believe that whoever is meant to find your business will find your business. Trying to fight artificial intelligence is a losing battle.  It seems like, as a collective, we've lost sight of why we're on social media because hardly anyone is being social. 

 When you implement consistency, consistency builds trust. Trust builds a relationship. Relationships create money transactions. 

Consistently posting, Consistently engaging with comments, Consistently finding and engaging with new people, and building a connection is the basis of all business.

Legitimate connection is at the heart of all of this. Let's bring fun back to Instagram, create content that excites you, not something that some guru with a team tells you works for them. 

What works for one account probably won't work for another. 

A little progress each day adds up to big results.

How To Make Your Social Media Accessible For The Deaf Community

If you aren't captioning your stories or videos, you're probably leaving money in the scroll.

I don’t know about you, but I do not know too many people whose phone volume is turned up when watching Instagram stories.  One of my favorite things to do is sit places and watch how other people consume social media. Observing helps me understand how people interact with the platforms and allows me to alter posts for the demographics I am targeting on behalf of clients.

For example, during lunchtime, I notice single people eating their lunches but scrolling Instagram stories without sound. You are getting tapped on by if you are talking during your Instagram stories and not captioning them.  If people do not have their earbuds, most likely they do not have the sound on. They will not be that person sitting by themselves with their phones sounds up for all the cafe to hear what it is precisely they are listening to; Especially when they aren’t sure what the account will be saying.

I have observed when people are out in public and scrolling while they are waiting for a table, picking up an order, or whatever else they could be waiting for, they will not turn up the volume just to listen to your story. They also are even less likely to go back and find your account to watch when they are in the comfort of their home. If you had the captions turned on, they would watch and read them, but you are getting tapped to the next without captions. 

Another reason to caption your stories and videos is that not everyone in the world can hear. Making your social posts accessible to all communities is an excellent way to show that your brand supports inclusivity when you caption your posts. This deaf community uses screen readers to correct the words and context of your videos because the screen readers pick up the words in the captions. 

Federal laws require closed captioning — or subtitles you can turn on and off — to be offered on broadcast television, including on live programming. But those laws, like so many others, were crafted before social media exploded and have not been extended in most cases to the user-dominated Internet. 2020 favorite and gaining in marketing popularity Tik Tok doesn’t even offer a closed caption feature; you manually need to type your captions in if you decide to use them. 

There is plenty of caption creator software out there, and Instagram even offers a caption sticker within the app itself; which side pro-tip, watch your videos back and read through the captions to see how accurate they are at translating your words. 

Hard of hearing or deaf social media users are part of the human condition, please consider them and the visually impaired community when creating video content. 

The Instagram Algorithm Is Not Human Plus Predictions For The "New" Algorithm

For the past few months, I’ve heard many business owners complain about how the Instagram algorithm hates them. Then they start “dressing” up their posts all fancy and out of character to impress some mystical human entity sitting at a wall of monitors somewhere in Silicon Valley that is swiping left on you. As if to deliberately doom your success because you just aren’t “fancy” enough. 

People, that is NOT what is happening!  

The algorithm is not this human entity gatekeeper holding you back from hitting all of your business dreams and goals. The hard pill to swallow is that your tiny piece of content is competing with 60 million other tiny pieces of content. Twenty million of which are dog/animal videos, and we all know how much joy falling down the rabbit hole of animal videos brings to our day.

Here’s the deal instead of focusing on getting all glammed up and impressing the algorithm, why aren’t you putting that time and attention into getting all glammed up and keeping the attention of the actual humans who are following you, purchasing from you, telling their friends about you, and overall resonating with you? 

There has been so much talk and hype lately about the Instagram algorithm going back to having the option to choose a chronological feed. While this could be beneficial, I want you to remember that this current type of algorithm also serves new people who’ve interacted with posts and brands similar to yours, your little slice of content. Don’t get me wrong; I am pumped that a chronological feed option is coming back, but we aren’t going back in time; I’m sure there will be a catch with most things that are Free to use. 

For example, Mosseri (head of Instagram) did an Instagram Live about how there will be three different options to curate your feed. 

You will have three feed options at some point here in 2022:

Home:  Your default and algorithm-based feed, which he says should have more recommendations in the future as in accounts you don’t always follow-hello Tik Tok based.

Favorites: You will create a list of all the accounts you don’t want to miss.

Following: This is the chronological feed you all have been asking for.

My predictions:

1. The hottest call to action at some point this year will be “Add us to your favorites.”

2. You will have absolutely no idea which feeds your customers favor using and where you fall into that, so you will have to figure out how to get scroll stopped on them all.

3. The hottest story poll is going to be “ What feed do you scroll most, Home, Favorites or Following.”

4. This will take up much more time because now people have three feeds to scroll.

5. Stories will become even more critical because it sounds like they will live on all three feeds, but who knows.

6. If you were complaining about engagement before, these changes would possibly negatively affect it. Content that stops the scroll will be even more clutch.

If you need any more of a reminder that the algorithm is not human, here you go, you are working against a machine. 

Like any new changes, we will have to wait and see when it gets out of the test phase and adapt when implemented. But the one thing that I know works through the eight years I have been doing this, communicating to the other humans in a way that resonates. 

If You Don't Post It To Social Media Does It Mean It Didn't Happen?

"I don't give a fuck; Twitter ain't a real place." Dave Chappelle

Last night I watched the “controversial” final Dave Chappelle special on Netflix, and this quote got me thinking that he's right. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram aren't real places.

We put all of this value, worth, and expectations of our "Human Experience" on these places that aren't even real. They aren't the next town over; they aren't a plane ride away; it's a place made of nothing and everything at the same time that one day we could wake up and it would be gone.

Last week I went to Red Rocks, and with the first hint that the band was coming on, almost the entire crowd pulled out their phones, slid over to the video setting of their camera, and tapped start. They were watching the concert through their phone when they were at Red Rocks, one of the top concert venues in North America.

Instead of choosing to be in the moment and have a human experience in a real place, they chose to have that experience through their phone. Watching this happen makes me wonder whether we are who we present online, or are we indeed who we are when we are walking around in real life.

We put all of this effort into being in real places but creating images or videos to share to this non-existent place to make us look the way we want the world to perceive us. And it makes me wonder just how much of the experience we are experiencing and how much of going to a place is to side brag to our followers that we've been there. If we don't filter and post our experience to social media, does it mean that it didn't happen in real life?

It may sound like I am hating on the social media spoon that feeds me when that's quite the contrary. I have been talking a lot in person about the core purpose of social media, and after 2020, many people are ready to jump the ship, and when people say that to me, I remind them that social media is a "necessary evil." The foundation of the social platforms is still there; with every user's post, it gets buried a little deeper down, but there is still an opportunity there to connect with like-minded people.

The fact is that your business does need to have a presence on social media. Social media is one of the top three search engines, and you want your business to show up on social media to connect with the searcher. Still, it's also true that you don't have to give up your human experience to do social media well.

When businesses hire me for coaching or management, my superpower is that each post, story, reel, email, or digital piece of information your brand puts out there translates to how the viewer, customer, or client would feel when they are around your real-life energy and the energy of your establishment.

Many people think that I will come in and turn your marketing upside down when I'm only coming in to redecorate the walls. You have a following because your voice has been established, and you, your voice, and your vision are why people have invested in you. The only change will be a decluttering to find the message, consistently share that message, and a zhuzhing of your visual assets.

If you live your most authentic human experience in worlds that don't exist, you are not doing your marketing wrong. You're doing it differently, and people stop their scroll for different. Every independently owned business is unique to the person who operates it, whether IRL or a made-up digital world, hold your uniqueness.

Instagram Reels Are A Commercial For Your Business

It’s time to start thinking about Reels as a commercial for your business.

When I am uninspired I will turn on the tv, that’s right the good old tv. Not streaming, I’m talking the alphabet networks where you are forced to watch the commercials because the commercials can inspire you.

It was in the midst of the commercials where I realized that Reels are just bite-sized commercials for your business.

The big chatter lately is about Instagram Reels and while I do love a good reel and see the significance of them bringing in new viewers it’s time to start looking at them as an old-school television commercial for your business.

It’s easy to hop. on the trend train but the problem with that is that eventually, viewers will see the same video and not know who is who. And honestly, after you’ve seen a trend in your feed a few times you are scrolling right past it anyway.

Putting your products in a lifestyle-based Reel helps to sell the emotion and imagination of the product in the person’s space.

I know that creating Reels can be extremely time-consuming and intimidating which is why I am creating a new offering of Reels Creation, if you can ship your product then I can style and shoot your product giving you professional-looking growth content and hours back in your day.

If you are looking for DIY Reel tips here are some things to keep in mind;

A FEW REELY KEYS THINGS TO REMEMBER:

1. If you are featuring your products in the Reels, tag the products on the Reel. People are lazy and especially during the holiday season, tag the product to make the impulse buy that much more convenient. If people need to go to the link in your profile or to another site to make a purchase, they are going to bounce and move on to the next gift idea.

2. In the caption of the Reel always tag your account, something like “Make sure to follow us @ insertyourname.” Users are finding new brands and profiles because a video will automatically pop into their feed next when they are hanging out in the Reels neighborhood. Nudge and remind them to give you a follow to see more of your rad content.

3. You do not need to post a Reel every day, seriously just working one Reel a week into your digital marketing calendar will help put your name out to more people.