Social media is without a doubt one of the best tools you can use to market your business. It allows you to meet your customers and intercept their attention right where they’re already spending their time. Social media allows businesses to connect and engage with their audiences in a way unlike any other.
However, with its ever-changing nature, keeping up with social media can feel like another job. You might think you’re falling behind or feel uncertain if you’re showing up in the right way. If that’s the case, you’re not alone. Here are 10 ways to improve your store’s social media presence to ensure your socials stay up to date and top of mind.
1. Align your content with your SMART goals.
SMART refers to specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed. Always remember quality over quantity when it comes to social media. You’re not posting just to post. Determine what your SMART goals are and create quality content that will help you achieve those goals. This is what’s going to resonate with your Perfect Customer Groups (PCGs) and help you reach the right audience.
2. Post to your Facebook and Instagram stories daily.
Stories appear at the top of the news feed when a user opens the Facebook or Instagram app, and they disappear after 24 hours. Stories are the perfect way to ensure you’re showing up in front of your customers every single day — helping to keep your business top of mind. Since this placement is time sensitive, consider using Stories to share behind-the-scenes content or information about sales or events.
3. Post humanized content.
Images and videos with people in them tend to get more engagement than those that don’t, so be sure to show faces in your content. As a business owner, you should be showing up, but it’s great to involve your employees too. This is not only going to help engagement, but it will build relationships with your audience. Consistently seeing faces from your shop on social media will allow them to become more familiar with you as a person, which will build trust and ideally lead to sales. After all, people buy from people!
4. Utilize short-form content.
Short-form content is all the buzz. It can come in many forms, but most commonly we think of TikTok, Facebook and Instagram Reels. We’re seeing massive growth in organic reach and following on TikTok and Reels. This is because unlike your regular feed posts, users don’t have to follow you to see your Reels and TikTok videos. So if your content is relevant to your business and your PCGs, the algorithm will help your content find the right audience. It’s one of the best ways to get discovered by new people organically or for free.
5. Go live on Facebook.
On the topic of maximizing organic reach, Lives are the best way to do that on Facebook. Facebook Live videos are viewed three times longer than prerecorded videos. Lives allow you to interact with your audience in real time in the digital space, almost as if you were having a conversation with them in person. It’s humanized, interactive and the best way to get organic reach and engagement.
6. Add hashtags to your posts to increase discoverability.
Conduct hashtag research to learn what types of hashtags your PCGs are searching for. On Facebook and Instagram, you should use three to four hashtags in any given post: one branded hashtag, one local hashtag, and one or two hashtags related to the post. On TikTok, you should use one to three hashtags that are as relevant as possible to your video.
7. Use Facebook Albums and Instagram Guides to organize your product offerings.
Facebook Albums allow you to organize your photos into different categories. For example, you could have one album for photos of beach accessories, one for home decor, one for apparel, etc. Similarly, with Instagram Guides you can group together related posts from your profile into one central post: the Guide! That way, if a viewer is looking for something specific while visiting your page, they can browse through that album or guide to see all you offer within that category, making it extremely user-friendly for your audience.
8. Update your Facebook cover photo.
This is a missed opportunity I see commonly among retailers. Your cover photo is one of the first things visitors see when they land on your Facebook page so it should be up to date and reflect whatever is currently going on in your store. Ideally, it should be updated once a month, but at least once a quarter take the time to put up something fresh. If you have a sale or event going on, your cover photo is an excellent place to share that information. If there’s nothing in particular happening in your store, you can still update your cover photo every month with an image of your storefront or a fresh team picture.
Pro Tip: Post Stories to Instagram Highlights on your profile to organize your Stories and expand their lifespan.
9. Fill out your Facebook About section.
Make sure you’ve filled out as much information about your store as possible. Be sure to include your contact information, hours, location and a description of your store, along with popular brands or products you carry.
10. Cover all the bases in your Instagram bio.
Just like your Facebook About section, your Instagram bio should include a bit of information about what your store specializes in, your hours and location, a link to your website and if you are feeling extra adventurous, maybe some emojis for a little bit of extra fun. Your viewers should be able to find basic information about your store regardless of what platform they’re visiting.
I encourage you to consider incorporating these 10 tips into your social media strategy. These will help you stay top of mind, see more reach and engagement, and attract your target customers.
