Crush your competitors on Facebook with these 7 marketing ideas for small businesses
In my work, I am exposed to the social networking activities of tens of thousands of companies.
From these examples, and from my own experience in marketing, I have learned some marketing ideas for small businesses that can help you in your social networking initiatives.
Throughout my suggestions, I will use a group of massage therapy companies. These companies are interesting because they are focused on the consumer, they need a strong web presence and SEO.
They must also achieve a localized marketing so that customers go to a specific place and receive a message.
All this is done with a competitive perspective because you can not do vacuum marketing and without knowing what your competition is doing and how they are doing.
For example, you may think that you are doing well with 1000 fans, until you see that your competition has 5000 likes on Facebook or more.
Crush your competitors on Facebook with these 7 marketing ideas for small businesses
1. Know which social networks to focus on.
While it has to be on social networks, most companies can not do all social networks at the same time.
Therefore, you must find out where your customers are and where the competition is playing.
Facebook is the leading social network for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing.
As you can see in this matrix of social channels, many of these massage companies operate in multiple networks:
However, by looking more closely at the number of followers and the potential reach, it is clear that Facebook is by far the priority and the focus.
So, if you were launching a new massage business, you would know from this initial competitive analysis that your first priority would be Facebook, and then Twitter.
2. Optimize your profile in that network
It is surprising how many companies create a page or a profile, but they do not optimize that presence.
On Facebook, for example, it has the ability to provide a lot of details on your page (accessible in Settings and Information on the page). To begin, optimize your descriptions using the maximum number of characters allowed.
As you can see in this general description of Facebook, not all of our massage companies have optimized their descriptions.
Remember: you are allowed up to 154 characters in this basic description. This is the first thing visitors will see on your page, plus it helps boost search results within Facebook.
Use this section to tell Facebook users who you are and what you do.
Do not put your hours of operation, locations or other similar details here, as there are other specific sections of the page for that information.
For example, if it were MassageLuXe at this time, I would update my Facebook description immediately!
Beyond this section, you must optimize throughout the configuration of the page. There is a section for a long description where you can add more details about your business, objectives, value, competitive advantage, etc. This is an excellent fodder for the search!
And be sure to complete the categories and subcategories that Facebook provides for the search. As with your website, Facebook users can find the purpose of your company's background content.
3. Communicate your brand personality.
While it must be present in social networks where your competition is located, it should not sound or look like them.
This means being clear about the unique value that YOU provide to your customers, whether at a lower price, higher quality, more variety, more convenience, etc., and having a brand personality.
Your brand can be humorous or silly or serious or useful or encouraging. Whatever it is, communicate it constantly in your Facebook posts.
Let's look at some of the publications written by our massage landscape to see if we can determine the personality of the companies.
Immediately I see that "Hand and stone" is trying to be the "useful" brand, with publications on "We can help" and "Did you know that massage can help you sleep?"
Massage Heights, on the other hand, is more lively, fun and motivating with publications like "Founder's Keepers", "cute gifts" and "some morning motivation" for a great day.
The key here is to be consistent in your "voice" and be unique in the competition, so your fans are waiting for your publications and know what to expect from your brand.
4. Build a strong fan base
Obviously, you need a base of likes, followers or fans. But all too often, too much emphasis is placed on the number of these followers.
It is much more important to have quality fans who really use or use your product or service, share their news and communicate with you virtually on social networks and, hopefully, also in your business.
There is not a "correct" number of followers. If you have a mailing list of, say, 500 or 1,000 people, then use the Facebook tool to invite those people to "Like" on Facebook.
Assuming that these people have chosen to engage with you at some point, it is realistic to assume that maybe half of them would take a second on "Like" on Facebook.
5. Create a great content that compromises
Another reason to be tired of the exaggerations about the amount I like is that this does not show if these followers are active or committed to you or not.
Getting someone to like or follow your business once is a good start, but the behavior that leads to income implies a commitment. Do your followers share your content or do you like specific publications or use the coupons / special promotions that you promote on Facebook?
To demonstrate this point, let's return to our panorama of the massage market. If we look at the numbers of pure followers, we can see that Massage Envy has a huge fan base compared to the other companies. It is not too surprising considering that it is a national brand with locations in several places.
However, when you run a report for Total Engagement, the image changes and Massage Envy is not really attractive to your audience, regardless of its size.
In fact, among the 34 first positions of the last 7 days, none is in charge of Massage Envy. Instead, Massage Heights wins for the most attractive Facebook posts, with 13 of the top 34 publications.
However, when you run a report for Total Engagement, the image changes and Massage Envy is not really attractive to your audience, regardless of its size.
In fact, among the 34 first positions of the last 7 days, none is in charge of Massage Envy. Instead, Massage Heights wins for the most attractive Facebook posts, with 13 of the top 34 publications.
These main analyzes of social content are also useful to see which types of publications generate the greatest participation (photos, links or state publications), as well as which day of the week the most attractive publications were published.
As we see here, most clients do not think about massages on Mondays, but by Wednesday they are ready!
Remember: you can learn from your competition and "steal" your ideas. If you find publications based on photographs related to specific types of massage that increase commitment, try a couple of publications that follow that model. Using YOUR personality, of course.
Next, we can see the actual content that drove that commitment. Hand and Stone received the first 1 and 2 messages of last week, again with that useful and pleasant personality.
In addition to reviewing the most attractive publications, you can review all competitors' publications and yours to discover what works and what does not work and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
6. Measure and analyze what works and what does not work.
As with other parts of your business and marketing, you should have clear goals with your social networks and constantly measure your performance and adjust accordingly.
It is good to have basic metrics such as audience and activity, especially if you need to increase your fan base or increase your activity level, and the measurement will allow you to show how you are improving in those areas. But make sure you're also measuring the commitment, according to the previous section, as well as other metrics that demonstrate how social networks are driving business growth.
Every 2 weeks, I analyze how much web traffic is being directed to my site through social media channels, and how much of that traffic is actually becoming registrations. I could make special offers only to Facebook followers and then measure how many of them became sales.
7. Integrate social networks with your other marketing channels.
While marketing has become much more complex in recent years, not to mention that it is more data-driven, it is more critical than ever to use integrated marketing strategies. This means that your social networks must align, complement and increase all your other marketing initiatives, from coupons to advertising, email marketing and much more.
All your marketing channels must be integrated with each other to provide a consistent brand image, message, and relevance to the target customer.
This is also true with your SEO.
Many people work to understand which keywords are driving the highest quality traffic to their website but do not think about using those keywords in other channels. Using again our massage therapy business as an example, you can see which words are the most important and competitive in this market.
If I were you, I would like to include these keywords in your marketing, in blogs, social networks, press releases, online advertising, etc.
Use the full marketing mix to create authority and brand value in your business and these terms.
Beat your competitors today
I am a big believer in agile marketing, so when implementing these marketing ideas for small businesses, do it in an agile way:start small
measure
adjust
keep going
You can accelerate the cycle by learning from other companies about their best practices on Facebook and other social channels.
By understanding your competitive landscape, you can also learn from the best practices and mistakes of your competitors and use them to gain customers and market share.
