Expert tips on using Facebook for your small business

As an owner or employee of a small business, we know your time is limited. Marketing isn’t your only hat and if you’re confused on where to start for Facebook, we’re here to help. Over 90 million small businesses use Facebook and its related products.

There are many reasons for a small business to use Facebook. The network boasts 2.45 billion monthly active users and 74% of its adult users who earn more than $75k are on the platform.

Not only does Facebook cover a wide demographic range but it also serves as a multi-use platform for small businesses. Potential customers use Facebook to discover new businesses, research them, receive ads and more. Having a Facebook Page establishes brand credibility and for some businesses, can take care of a customer from start to finish without ever leaving the site.

From setting up a Page to the promotion, here are some expert tips on how to get the most out of your Facebook Page as a small business.

Facebook Page setup for small businesses

Facebook offers a wide range of products so it can be understandably daunting to figure out what works best for you. If you’re starting fresh on a Facebook Page or it’s been a while since you performed a Facebook audit, these tips are for you. Not every feature is meant for every type of business, but it’s especially important for small businesses is making sure everything is up to date.

Choose the right category & template

You can change your categories, subcategories and templates anytime so don’t sweat if you don’t pick the right one at the beginning. However, refining to the right selection is specifically important for small businesses because categories are key for discovery, and templates unlock important features like shops and reviews.

Customize your tabs

When you go through the Page templates, you’ll be able to see which tabs are available to you. After applying the template, you’ll then be able to hide and add select tabs, as well as rearrange their order. So, for example, if you think you’ll be investing in a video marketing strategy, then you should move the Videos tab up further in the lineup.

Customize CTA button & link a catalog

If you’re a service or product-based business, then taking the time to set up your call-to-action button and linking your product catalog is important. These features allow your customers to book directly or purchase from your Page without ever leaving the site.

PRUDY Braiding Studio lists its services and has a CTA button for booking appointments. When a customer is interested in a service, they can click it to learn more and then use the button to book their appointment. This flow provides a seamless experience for customers.

At the time of this writing, Facebook Shops is rolling out to all businesses as a way for them to promote new products.

Tip: A bonus for setting up these features is that they also become available to you if you have a linked Instagram account. Set this up once for two networks.

Set up Messenger & more

A prime advantage of being a small business is that you’re more nimble than the larger ones. This means that direct communication with customers via Messenger might not need to go through as many approval hoops.

Messenger has evolved from a peer-to-peer chat box to a customer service platform. Add your availability times, FAQs and even automated responses.

The above are just the basics for setting up a Facebook Page for a small business. There are far more tips you can explore, including using Facebook Business Manager to manage multiple permissions and learning about the verification process to further establish your brand credibility.

Facebook Page promotion & execution

Once your Facebook Page is set up to your liking, it’s time for promotions and posts to begin. Explore a variety of post ideas to bring in more engagement and consider using a content calendar to plan out your work. Having this is in place helps you understand what’s missing and how to space out your posts.

Run occasional discounts or flash sales

No one likes to miss out on deals. The latest Sprout Social Index indicates that 40% of consumers follow brands on social media to learn about promotions and discounts. Why not give them what they want?

To enhance your social promotions, use Facebook’s ad offer feature so you can track how many are actually taking advantage of the sale.

Cross-promote your content

As a small business, you need to be savvy about how you use your content. One platform’s content could be reused on another if the audience and goals fit. A small tweak in caption is less time consuming than creating fresh content.

Even better, if you use Instagram Stories frequently, you can link your Facebook Stories to them so every time you publish Stories on Instagram, you also publish the same content to Facebook.

Set up expectations for social customer service

The same Sprout Social Index report found that when consumers follow brands on social media, 74% of them will reach out for customer service or support. If you’re going to use Facebook as a platform for social customer service, you’ll need to set up those expectations beforehand with clear information for your customers. Don’t wait for someone to message and then wonder what the next step is going to be or when they’ll hear back.

As mentioned earlier, Messenger has multiple ways for you to manage this expectation, including your own availability for responding to messages. Your away message here should include your hours and helpful links if you have those available.

Schedule posts

Once you have the content and calendar all ready to go, it’s time to schedule all those posts. Facebook has a robust native scheduler or you can use software like Sprout to help manage posts across multiple platforms.

The Sprout schedule not only shows drafts and scheduled posts but the ViralPost feature will automatically schedule based on your brand’s highest engagement times. You may not need a scheduling tool if you’re just starting your social presence, but over time you’ll likely find saving the time and effort for other parts of your social strategy to be an advantage.

Learn more about Facebook for small business

Facebook isn’t a set-up-and-done kind of social media platform. It’s constantly evolving in features, ads and newsfeed algorithms. Your campaign strategy from last year might not work as well this year if you repeat it without consideration of new social trends and features. Because of this constant evolution, it’s important to continue learning and exploring new strategies.

Custom audiences for ads

One of the strongest ways to advertise on Facebook is to use the custom audience feature. You can retarget those who have visited your website, engaged with your ads and most recently, taken certain shopping actions. Custom audiences take advantage of sources that you already have in place, like a newsletter list, and advertises to them. These people are likely more receptive to the ads because they’ve willingly followed or interacted with you already.

Review analytics

Without analytics, you can easily find yourself floundering in the midst of all your content efforts. How do you know if a post was successful if you don’t look at how it performed? Facebook’s native Insights tab gives you a plethora of information from engagement to clicks to Page actions.

However, with business growing, you might find yourself with a need to present analytics graphics to investors or management. Analytics tools like Sprout help you easily understand what’s going on with your Page and will generate presentation-ready graphics for you with the click of a button.

Keep up on new features

As mentioned before, Facebook is not a static platform. New features are constantly added and the advantage of being a small business is that you can easily test these out without a complex and time-consuming chain of approvals and inputs.

For example, your business might benefit from adding a Shop feature, allowing you to tag products on a post and for consumers to purchase from it. A larger business may have difficulty linking a huge catalog but a small business with a focused offering could do it easily.

COVID–19 grants

With the COVID–19 pandemic severely impacting small business operations, Facebook announced a $100 million cash grant for small businesses and an additional $100 million to Black-owned small businesses, creators and nonprofits. Take a moment to see if you qualify for the program.

Take Facebook for Business courses

It’s to Facebook’s advantage for business owners to get the most out of their platform. Because of this, the company created an entire resource library for businesses. The resources range from new features relevant to businesses to singular courses to helpful case studies for inspiration. Exploring resources like this and reading about new Facebook strategies puts you ahead of the curve and at a competitive advantage to other small businesses.

Conclusion

Facebook doesn’t have to be a daunting platform for small businesses. Once you break it down into steps, a Facebook marketing strategy is easy to learn and execute. Small businesses need to pay attention to details like the CTA button and set up Messenger to take full advantage of what the platform offers. With the right approach and upkeep on new features, you’re well on your way to being a pro at Facebook. For the latest data on how marketers and consumers are using social media, explore the Sprout Social Index.

This post Expert tips on using Facebook for your small business originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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8 ways to show your clients the value of social in a tumultuous climate

While nearly everything came to a halt in early 2020, social media never slowed down. In fact, roughly half of consumers report using social more since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Sprout’s Agency Partner Program was built to help our agency customers expand their client networks, connect with other agencies around the globe and use Sprout best-in-class tools to serve their clients more effectively. Agency Partners have always recognized the power and value social, but a common challenge agencies face is demonstrating that value to clients. The events of 2020, however, created a tipping point. Read on to learn about how eight agency experts turned tumultuous times into an opportunity for their clients to level up on social.

1. Social is an essential tool for essential businesses

Ingredient is a food marketing agency and several of their clients are grocery stores, which were deemed essential businesses during COVID-19 and were one of the few places consumers still regularly visited during the pandemic.

“Social media has been critical when it comes to grocery stores keeping customers informed of store hours, mask guidelines, and what precautions they are taking to keep their employees and customers as safe as possible. We’re seeing customers connecting with their local stores at more of an emotional level instead of just a functional level as customers openly express their support of and appreciation for the store employees.

Through Sprout Premium Analytics, we’ve been able to monitor the impact of this on impressions, reach and engagement. More specifically, we saw organic impressions double from February to March as customers looked for and shared this information on both Facebook and Instagram.”

– Emily Tritabaugh, VP Content Strategy, Ingredient

2. Stay connected despite the (social) distance

When the world feels unstable, people search for answers and a port in the storm. Throughout the pandemic, the 123 Internet Group’s top priority was ensuring that their clients are staying connected with their customers and communities on social.

“No matter what industry you’re in, you need to keep in touch and be transparent with your customers. We worked closely with all our clients to help them understand the needs of their customers while providing answers and advice related to the pandemic.

We use Sprout Social to schedule and post regular Q&As so our customers can drum up conversations and take direction as to how they could improve their business straight from their customers. Then we use Sprout Analytics to understand which posts and topics had the most engagement and which stories resonated. As we continue to grow their following we can ensure we continue to highlight these topics to increase engagement”

– Scott Jones, CEO, 123 Internet Group

3. Personal connections > constant sales messaging

Retail is an industry that has faced major disruptions during 2020 like store closures, production plant shutdowns and drops in sales. Connec+, a full-service digital marketing and retail consultancy business, recognized that social media would be instrumental in filling communication gaps.

Thanks to social media we were able to continue to provide the connection that customers were craving throughout this time. We moved our focus from marketing and ads to more direct engagement—one-on-one interaction with other people—and our followers responded.

As we added in marketing messages we were able to convert more customers through social media to sales, and the loyalty we created during lockdown has continued as the stores have reopened. It’s been an important lesson for our clients that personal connections on social media are more valuable than constant sales messaging and we hope that they will continue to see the importance in the months to come.”

– Aimee Stewart, Managing Director, Connec+

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Today’s consumers expect more. 👂 They want to speak and be heard. 🎓 They want to be entertained and to be educated. ✔️ They want to have their needs met without asking #customercentric #socialmedia #getconnected

A post shared by Connec+ Your Digital Partner (@connectplusnz) on Jul 24, 2020 at 9:19pm PDT

4. Give the people what they want and need

 Connection is the new currency. At Aroluxe Marketing, an integrated marketing agency in Nashville, TN, the team takes an empathetic approach to creating deep, authentic connections between clients and their audiences.

“Social media is now more important than ever. It enables your brand to stay connected despite our current environment. The key is finding what your audience needs during this time both emotionally and physically. Do they want to be sold to right now? Would your product or service be valuable to them right now? Maybe your ideal customer just needs some feel good stories or wants to know how your brand is supporting its community. Sprout’s Social Listening tool allows us to dive deeper into whatever those needs may be and build content around those insights.”

– Sara Staats, Social Lead, Aroluxe Marketing

5. Teach clients where they fit into the new landscape

 Emely Roman and her team of “marketing mixologists” at The Foundry Collective ensure that their clients’ social presence is anything but generic. Unfortunately though, social was the first thing to go for some of her clients as the pandemic disrupted business. They quickly realized their mistake.

“In the beginning of the pandemic, we lost a couple of clients because social media had sat on the back burner of their company budgets. However, as social distancing and isolation became a new norm, those same clients and new ones quickly realized how important it was to use social to connect with their audience online.

A restaurant, a public speaker and even a ministry reached out to us to help them enhance their social media presences. All of them were now faced with the challenge of developing new product offerings and reaching out to an evolving consumer base. Thankfully because we had Sprout Social on our side we were able to send proposals with live competitor analysis from their Listening Tool, which showed how much more efforts the brands that are currently being successful were putting on social media.”

– Emily Roman, CEO, The Foundry Collective

6. The only doors that have stayed 100% open during hard times are on social media

 At See.Spark.Go., social media is a pillar of the content marketing they provide for their clients. As their name suggests, they balance long-term thinking and learning with quick reflexes and real-time data.

“As Sprout’s CMO Jamie Gilpin said during Sprout Sessions, ‘the only doors that have stayed 100% open are on social media.’ Whether it was daily changes in store hours or a CEO opening a dialogue about racial injustice, we were able to show our clients data from examples—both good and bad—and connect it to their long-term strategic business objectives.

Reporting weekly, being transparent and adjusting our strategies based on new learnings regularly allowed us to continue to show the value of social media, so much so, that clients who were forced to furlough internal team members saw that the one thing they couldn’t press pause on was social.”

– Jennifer Garrett, VP of Content and Creative, See.Spark.Go.

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⚡️ Enthusiasm cannot be cancelled. 🧡 Care + compassion cannot be cancelled. 💪 Motivation to forge new paths cannot be cancelled. 👥 Relational connections cannot be cancelled. 🙌 Trust, faith and courage cannot be cancelled. 💡 Our dedication to #ShineBright for our clients, our team and our communities CANNOT be cancelled. . We are here together during these uncertain times, and for that we are so GRATEFUL. 🤍

A post shared by See.Spark.Go (@seesparkgo) on Mar 16, 2020 at 2:23pm PDT

7. Social is the where customers go for quick, reliable customer support

 According to the 2020 Sprout Social Index™, 49% of consumers will unfollow a brand on social due to poor customer service. In times of crisis, the need for reliable customer service and support only becomes greater, which Happy Hour Media Group recognized and championed during the pandemic.

“Our agency has shown our clients how powerful social media can be for providing customer support and helping to ease tensions and concerns their customers have during tumultuous times. Businesses that stay silent leave their customers more confused, so we advised them to continue sharing any and all relevant updates on social media to keep customers updated and informed.

Thanks to the help of Sprout, our agency is able to stay on top of incoming messages and relevant mentions that come in through the Smart Inbox. This ability helps our agency and our client be responsive enough to turn a frustrated customer into a satisfied one.”

– Amanda Mueller-Hickler, Social Media Manager, Happy Hour Media Group

We're bringing you a 4-part series on lessons learned from a global crisis full of insights from social media marketers…

Posted by Happy Hour Media Group on Monday, July 20, 2020

8. Convince non-believers with social data

CREW Marketing Partners, a full-service agency that prides itself on growing their clients into leading brands in their industries, proved it’s not just paid media that supports marketing goals. An engaged audience and organic content can go a long way. They’ve got the data to prove it.

“I talk with clients about companies that invest in content and audience building year after year, and explain that those are the brands that are finding themselves in a better place today than their competitors who didn’t make that investment. That’s in part because those businesses that build engaged audiences don’t have to rely entirely on paid media for their traffic when times get tough.

When we halted nearly all paid activity, we pitched a social contest to a client as a way to continue building brand awareness. We were able to use Sprout Social data to clearly illustrate how the contest helped give the brand extensive organic reach and impressions, engagement and new followers. Making the investment in building audiences has recently paid dividends, and will again in the next downturn.”

– Brad Marshall, Director of Digital Marketing, CREW Marketing Partners

Grow with us

Being able to help our Agency Partners excel during challenging times is what Sprout’s Agency Partner Program is all about. The program includes access to co-marketing resources, sales support to grow your network and a community of support and unmatched social expertise. Come grow with us! Learn more here.

This post 8 ways to show your clients the value of social in a tumultuous climate originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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Effective ways to successfully ask for customer reviews

When making purchasing decisions, potential customers put a lot of weight on the experiences of others. Many shoppers seek out reviews to find objective and unbiased information on products they’re interested in buying. As a marketer, social proof such as reviews from customers organically sharing their opinion is extremely valuable.

It’s essential to incorporate asking for reviews into your marketing strategy to make sure that you’re getting quality reviews from your customers.

The importance of customer reviews

Figuring out how to use customer testimonials as part of your brand’s marketing process can boost credibility through social proof, improve your reputation and relationships with your customers, and improve your brand’s SEO and visibility.

Better brand reputation

Having a lot of reviews can improve your brand’s online reputation and inform new potential customers. Shoppers will see that your brand has helped others solve a problem and use it as a solution of their own.

According to a study conducted by BrightLocal, 85% of online shoppers trust reviews just as much as personal recommendations. So when shoppers see a high number of positive reviews, they’re less likely to have concerns, or second guess purchasing your product.

Increased social proof

Social proof is a concept rooted in customers’ sense of belonging. Customers want to feel good about who they’re giving their money to and they want to feel like they are making the right decision. Having a lot of customer reviews can reinforce potential customer’s feelings of certainty about your brand. It makes them secure in their buying decision by showing them that others have made the same decision and that they are satisfied enough to recommend the purchase to others.

Improved SEO

Once your brand receives five reviews on Google, your business will begin to show up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This strategy is most beneficial for local businesses. However, it can also create an advantage over your competitors if you have the most reviews on your Google My Business page. The more reviews you have on Google, the higher your business will show up in local search results.

How to get more reviews from customers

Most brands hope that their customers will love their product or service enough to leave glowing reviews organically. But if you’re not actively seeking out reviews, customers may move on and forget to write them. For this reason, it’s important to incorporate intentional strategies to ask your customers for reviews.

If you’re unsure how to ask for customer reviews, here are some strategies you can use to encourage your customers to provide reviews more frequently.

Reach out to power users or repeat customers

One of the easiest ways to get customer reviews is to reach out to customers who you already know enjoy your products. For e-commerce or B2C brands, follow up with customers who have made multiple purchases. For B2B brands or Saas companies, take note of the people who continually use your service or software and reach out to these power users for feedback or even participation in case studies.

This outreach can be as simple as sending an email expressing your appreciation for their continued support. In this email, ask if they are willing to leave a review and create a direct link for them to use to review a product they purchased.

Make it as easy as possible

The easier it is for your customers to leave their review, the more likely they are to do it. Creating a template or form that the customer can quickly fill out will lower the barrier and streamline the process. While you want the review to be authentic, creating a streamlined process makes it easier for your customers to share their thoughts.

A lot of brands, like Expedia, create forms that give customers the option to rate different parts of the experience. All it takes is a few clicks to rate and review various aspects of their trip.

Offer an incentive

Sometimes people need an extra push to share their experiences. After all, people are busy and leaving a review or testimonial can be time-consuming. Show your customers that you value their time and feedback by offering a small incentive to anyone who leaves a review. This can include things like a small discount on their next purchase, a freebie or a shoutout of some sort.

ActiveCampaign implemented this strategy by emailing their users a request to leave a review in exchange for an Amazon gift card. To promote transparency, they even encouraged customers to disclose that they received an incentive to leave this review.

Create review options on different platforms

To make it even easier for your customers to leave reviews, give them the option to leave reviews on a variety of platforms. If customers are more active on Facebook, they’re more likely to leave a review on your Facebook Page. Some of your audience might prefer to use Yelp or Google reviews and choose to leave you a review there. Make sure that you’ve claimed your business pages on various platforms to allow your audience to share their experience more easily.

Share user-generated content

Keep an eye out on social media for people who are already, organically talking about your brand. If your brand receives a lot of user-generated content, highlight those customers by sharing their posts with your audience. It demonstrates that you have fans who value your product enough to talk about it on their own. You can also show your appreciation for your loyal customers by replying to them on social media and sharing their messages on your accounts.

You can also create a branded hashtag and encourage your audience to share their experiences using that hashtag.

Use a Review management tool

If you’re not sure how to track and manage your Facebook or Google My Business reviews, Sprout’s Reviews tool can help. The tool enables you to manage and monitor reviews across multiple business pages. The Reviews tool makes it easy to keep track of all of your review platforms. In Sprout, you can Google My Business, Facebook Pages and TripAdvisor reviews, all from one easy-to-use dashboard.

Using a review management tool that helps you integrate all of your review platforms can save time and keep you organized. It will also make it easier to respond to reviews and track where they come from. Knowing where your reviews most frequently come from can help create a more streamlined strategy when asking for them in the future.

Create case studies

For B2B brands, creating case studies can be a lucrative way to show how you’ve helped other businesses. Case studies are much more in-depth than standard testimonials. When done right, they can be an incredible way to showcase your product or service in a new light.

At Sprout, we use case studies to highlight customer success stories and showcase how brands are using our tools to meet their goals. Case studies are mutually beneficial for clients because they also highlight the other business. They also demonstrate new ways existing customers can use product features that they may not have thought of previously.

Creating a case study will require more of a time commitment on your part and on that of the client. You may need to conduct multiple interviews and it helps if you have been tracking the client’s progress over time.

Things to remember when asking for customer reviews

Yes, asking for reviews is an integral part of your strategy. But you still want your customer reviews to be as authentic as possible. There are some strategies you should avoid as they can promote dishonest reviews and even damage your brand’s reputation. Keep the following guidelines in mind when asking for reviews:

• Encourage honest reviews. Always encourage your audience to be as truthful and authentic as possible in their review. Offering incentives can encourage more reviews, but never pay someone to write a positive review. The purpose of the incentive should not be to sway their review in any way.
• Avoid asking too soon. Wait until your customers have enough time to form an opinion before asking them for a review. Asking too fast or too often could come off as pushy.
• Create a feedback loop. Make sure that you’re engaging with your audience before asking for a review and have a good feedback loop cycle. If you consistently receive negative reviews, find ways to make improvements and incorporate customer feedback into your product before asking for additional reviews.

Customer reviews have the power to propel your brand’s reputation and build trust with your audience. Whether you’re collecting reviews on your website, social media, or another tool, these strategies can help streamline the process. For a more in-depth look at how reviews can impact your business, download our complete guide on Building a Better Reputation with Reviews.

This post Effective ways to successfully ask for customer reviews originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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Top 5 benefits of a Pinterest business account

Wondering if you should sign up for Pinterest? While each platform has its own demographics that can guide your strategy, there are plenty of benefits to having a Pinterest business account.

When you create a business account, you gain access to a lot of Pinterest benefits that you wouldn’t have otherwise, creating so many new opportunities for your online presence.

Read through this guide to help you understand just how powerful a Pinterest business account can be for your brand.

1. Spot emerging trends

Pinterest is the number one platform where consumers share products, designs and trends that they’re loving. To ensure that your brand is on the forefront of upcoming trends in your industry, you want to maintain an active presence on Pinterest.

Not only should you follow influencers in your industry on the platform to find emerging trends, but Pinterest regularly aggregates categories of popular content for users based on their searches.

Check out these search options that appear when a user clicks on the search bar. For me, it includes curated content from interior design styling ideas to website and business resources.

These aggregate search categories will appear based on your searches, and if you’re searching for things related to your business, you’re likely to see options that will be hyper-targeted to your brand and audience.

Search through these ideas to see which products or services you should be promoting or adding for your customers and clients.

2. Increase brand authority

When you create a Pinterest business account, you get access to a few features on your profile that regular accounts don’t have.

Take a look at my Pinterest business profile below.

There are several elements to this profile that regular Pinterest users can’t access:

• A header full of your own branded pins
• Insight into the number of viewers your pins get
• A verified website

Each of these lend to your brand authority, giving you a more legitimate online presence.

3. Drive website traffic

As I mentioned in the last point, you’re able to include your verified website address on your Pinterest business profile.

This is one great way to immediately start driving website traffic from your Pinterest profile.

To add, a Pinterest business account gives you access to rich Pins, a type of Pin that offers more information about your landing page than a regular Pin. For product Pins, that include pricing information and other product specs.

Here’s an example of a product Pin below.

Pins like this showcase more information about your product, service or blog post before a user saves or clicks on it. Enticing users can lead to more clicks and more traffic.

4. Access your analytics

Another great perk of using a Pinterest business account is the ability to see analytics for your Pins, especially the ones that you’ve saved from your website.

You’re able to view impressions, engagements, clicks, views and so much more. You can also select specific date ranges and view all of your pins or only the Pins saved from your website.

If you’re looking for other Pinterest performance information, you can also check your report in Sprout Social’s dashboard.

Viewing your analytics is a great way to see which Pins are getting the most clicks and generating the most traffic to your website so that you can promote them for even more success and create similar products, blog posts or Pins to replicate that success.

5. Run ads and promoted Pins

Our last top benefit of Pinterest business accounts is the ability to run ads and promoted Pins. Gaining access to Pinterest advertising and targeting features is a major benefit, and can help you to see even more success from your Pinterest profile.

Simply head over to the Ads tab in your business account’s navigation bar to get started.

Choose to build ad campaigns around brand awareness, traffic or conversions, and you can choose hyper-specific interest targeting for your ads.

Because Pinterest is used as a visual search engine, it has really powerful ad targeting options since it knows exactly what people are searching for and interested in. Users are often on the platform researching purchases, and highlighting your products on the network front and center can generate more sales and conversions.

Pinterest advertising is also extremely affordable, and if you have a visual product or service, you should definitely set aside some of your advertising budget for this platform.

Get started on Pinterest today

Ready to take advantage of all of these benefits of Pinterest? Create your own Pinterest business account and check out our 5-step Pinterest marketing guide to get started.

This post Top 5 benefits of a Pinterest business account originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to develop a social marketing strategy for your business’ reopening

Every retailer is thinking about the steps they’ll need to take when it’s time to reopen. And it’s not just operations and logistics teams that need to prepare—your business’ social team also needs to have a plan in place for reopening.

Throughout quarantine, social gave brands a direct line to their customers. With in-person shopping making a comeback, social will again play an important role in keeping customers updated on information that will impact their in-store experience. As stores increasingly welcome guests in person, social data will help marketers develop a clear plan of action to ensure an effective and safe reopening for everyone.

As you plan your business’ reopening, keep the following considerations top of mind:

• Prioritize social customer care. As customers navigate this new normal, shoppers will continue to reach out on social with questions and concerns.
• Health and safety are shoppers’ top concerns. Businesses should use their social platforms to share updated safety protocols and address any concerns customers may have before entering stores.
• Information is changing rapidly. To stay on top of the latest trends, leverage tools like social listening to keep a pulse on how customers feel about stores reopening and what they need from your business.

Phase one: Prepare to reopen your business

According to the latest Sprout Social Index, 47% of consumers follow brands on social media to stay up to date on company news. Let customers know what’s changed about your hours of operation and safety requirements so they know what to expect from their in-store experience.

With so much uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, it’s only natural health and safety are top of mind for everyone. Our latest retail data report revealed that in social conversations about going back to school, more than 40,000 messages included the words “safe” or “safety.” As you plan out your content calendar, prioritize information around customer health and what measures are in place to enforce social distancing. After announcing their reopening in early June, Milk Handmade, an independent boutique in Chicago, took to Instagram to share updated business hours and provided customers the option of booking private appointments for added safety.

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We’re getting ready for you and being careful to keep everyone safe 🧼 😷⠀ ⠀ Looking forward to seeing you in the shop starting Friday. Our new hours are:⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Th-Sun: 11-6 (2 people max will be allowed in at a time)⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ M-W: by appointment. You can message me here or email milkchicago@gmail.com to make your private appointment.

A post shared by Milk Handmade • Hallie Borden (@milkhandmade) on Jun 10, 2020 at 4:28pm PDT

In a similar move, fitness studio Barry’s posted to its Instagram important safety changes like updates to their air filtration systems and new check-in policies. The studio also let customers know how group classes would be changing, such as decreased capacity and rearranged equipment to ensure six feet between patrons at all times.

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🚨Important Safety Updates From #Barrys US 🚨(link in bio to learn more).

A post shared by Barry's (@barrys) on May 27, 2020 at 4:05pm PDT

As you continue to roll out important safety messages ahead of your reopening, think about what else your customers need to know before stepping foot in stores. Leverage social listening to uncover which topics are top of mind for shoppers in your industry and what concerns you haven’t addressed on social or via other communications channels.

Other need-to-know information to consider sharing with your customers ahead of time may include:

• Changes to in-store return and try-on policies
• Reserved shopping hours for the elderly and immunocompromised customers
• The number of shoppers allowed in stores at any given time
• Face covering and mask requirements for entry

The more you can share with customers ahead of time, the better prepared they (and you) will be when it’s time for your business’ reopening.

Phase two: Provide ongoing support and quick responses to customers

The day is finally here—it’s time to reopen! As shoppers make their way into stores, social teams can expect to receive an influx of customer messages ranging from questions to feedback to complaints.

According to Sprout data, from April to June retailers saw  a 72% increase in the average number of daily inbound messages received compared to the same time period last year. In other words, customers are reaching out to brands on social more as they adjust to new shopping experiences.

Instead of waiting for customers to come to you with their questions, brands can take a proactive approach and share important updates on social ahead of time. Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery, for example, took to Twitter to share they were working to fulfill orders as quickly as possible after customers complained about long delivery times.

We are so grateful with how patient everyone has been with our process!

We have been buried in orders, but are digging our way out and will be closed next week for renovations, which will allow more time to get all emails answered and orders shipped!

Thank y’all so much! ❤️

— Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery (@SemicolonChi) June 20, 2020

Another type of message retailers can expect to receive from customers is questions around face mask requirements in order to gain entry. After Nordstrom announced select stores were opening back up, they received a number of questions from shoppers asking whether they had to wear a face mask in stores.

Hi there, We’re adhering to all local laws so if a face mask is required based on those guidelines, we’ll require them in our stores as well. We recommend that your sister connect with her HR team with any concerns she may have. Thank you.

— Nordstrom (@Nordstrom) June 19, 2020

While you won’t be able to anticipate every question, you can start building out guidelines for how you’ll respond under certain scenarios. For example, clothing retailers are likely going to receive questions from customers about trying on merchandise in stores. As part of your proactive communications strategy, consider sharing information about how social distancing will be enforced in dressing rooms and how often rooms will be cleaned.

As you plan out your social strategy, consider teaming up with your communications or operations team to brainstorm the possible questions you’ll receive and develop a list of pre-approved responses your team can pull from.

Phase three: Step back and reassess your messaging

As social teams continue to share important updates and support customers online, they also need to assess what’s working and what’s not.

Do your customers feel like they have enough information to safely enter your stores? What pain points are shoppers experiencing once they’re in stores, and how can the social team help alleviate those frustrations?

To find these answers and more, you need to look to your social data. With social media analytics tools, social teams can track how certain posts perform and what types of content gets your audience to engage. For example, you might find posts about in-store safety precautions get the most amount of engagement, while posts about sales are less engaging. This kind of social data can help marketers double down on content customers want to see and provide the confidence they need to safely shop with your brand.

With 40% of customers expecting brands to respond within an hour of reaching out on social, marketers should be tracking their response rates and times as part of their customer care strategy. Especially as shoppers adjust to this new normal, your brand’s ability to respond in a timely manner will go a long way in creating a positive customer experience.

Finally, social listening data can help social marketers identify trends and consumer sentiment around reopening in almost real-time. With listening data, marketers can keep a pulse on the latest developments in their area like recent store closures and concerns shoppers have about in-person shopping. And listening empowers social teams to quickly address and resolve any customer issues, like poor in-store experiences or confusion about operating hours, before they can spiral out of control .

Be ready for anything

If this pandemic has taught social teams anything, it’s that even the best laid plans can go awry. Already, we’ve seen several states walk back their original plans to reopen and retailers have to close their doors for a second time.

Until the virus is completely eradicated, the best social strategy for retailers is one that can adapt to the situation at hand, emphasizes proactive communication and prioritizes transparency. Most importantly, let your customers know you’re there for them and ready to support them in whatever way possible.  With a strong plan in place, and a bit of flexibility, social teams can prepare for a smooth business reopening and support customers as they navigate the next phase of this pandemic.

Learn what shoppers are saying about retail today

Use data to create a back-to-school social strategy that speaks to consumers’ needs and gives them confidence in your business’ approach.

Download your copy of the 2020 back-to-school report today to put data into action.

This post How to develop a social marketing strategy for your business’ reopening originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to Find Your Target Audience

When I first started out in marketing, I thought traffic was everything.

I wanted to be as big as companies like HubSpot. Just look at the image above and you’ll see how many visitors they are getting.

They generate 29.61 million visitors a month from 11.74 million people. And those visitors produce roughly 10 billion dollars of market cap.

Now, let’s look at NeilPatel.com. Can you guess how many visitors I’m getting each month?

I’m generating roughly 8.717 million visitors a month from 3.616 million people.

When you look at it from a unique visitor perspective, HubSpot is getting 3.24 times more unique visitors than me.

So, in theory, I should be worth roughly 3 times less than them, right? Well, technically I’m not even worth 1/10th of them. Not even close.

Why is that? It’s because I didn’t go after the right target audience, while HubSpot did.

And today, I want you to avoid making this massive mistake that I made. Because marketing is tough, so why would you start off by going after the wrong people?

It will just cause you to waste years and tons of money like it did with me.

Defining your target audience is the first and most essential step towards success for any company or business, especially if you are just getting started.

So before we dive into things, let me first break down what you are about to learn in this article:

• What is a Target Audience?
• The Difference Between Target Audience and Persona
• The Importance of Selecting Your Target Audience Correctly
• How to Define your Target Audience: 6 Questions to Help You
• Creating Customized Content for Your Audience

Let’s get started!

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a share of consumers that companies or businesses direct their marketing actions to drive awareness of their products or services.

I know that is a tongue twister, so let me simplify it a bit more…

The intention here is to target a market with whom you will communicate with. A group of people with the same level of education, goals, interests, problems, etc. that will need the product or service you are selling.

Basically, you want to target people who will buy your stuff.

If you target people who don’t want to buy your stuff, you might get more traffic to your site… but it won’t do much for you. And you’ll be pulling out your hair trying to figure out why none of your visitors are buying from you.

Now before we dive into the details on finding your target audience, let’s first go over “personas” because many people confuse them with a target audience and if you do, you’ll just end up wasting time.

The difference between a target audience and a persona

You already know the definition, so I won’t bore you with that again.

The most commonly used data to define the target audience of a company are:

• Age
• Gender
• Education background
• Purchasing power
• Social class
• Location
• Consumption habits

Examples of a target audience: Women, 20-30 years old, living in Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree, monthly income of $4,000 – $6,000, and passionate about fashion and decor.

If you start a company without knowing your exact target audience, you could end up like me instead of HubSpot… we wouldn’t want that now. 😉

And here is another example. Let’s say you have a business that sells educational toys. So your target audience might be children, mothers, education specialists, or teachers.

Or you have a motorcycle business. Your audience will definitely not be people younger than 18, right?

There is no point in trying to reach everyone in order to increase your chances of sales and profit. It will actually cost you more and decrease your profit margins in the long run.

Now let’s go over “personas”…

Persona

In marketing, personas are profiles of buyers that would be your ideal customers.

Personas are fictional characters with characteristics of your real customers. They’re developed based on target audience research and may help you direct your marketing actions better.

A persona is a person that may be interested in what you have to offer since they’re very connected to your brand and you must make an effort to make them a client and retain them.

A persona involves much deeper and more detailed research than the target audience since it includes:

• Personal characteristics
• Purchasing power
• Lifestyle
• Interests
• Engagement in social networks
• Professional information

Persona example: Mariana, 22, blogger. Lives in Miami, Florida. Has a journalism degree. Has a blog and posts makeup tutorials and tips about fashion and decor. She always follows fashion events in the area and participates in meetings with other people in the fashion niche. As a digital influencer, she cares a lot about what people see on her social network profiles. Likes to practice indoor activities and go to the gym in her free time.

If I had to define the main difference between persona and target audience, I’d say that the target audience considers the whole, in a more general way, while the persona has a more specific form.

And if you want help creating personas for business, check out this article about creating the perfect persona. But for now, let’s focus on finding your right target audience.

The importance of choosing your target audience correctly

The big mistake I made was that I didn’t figure out my target audience when I first started. I just created content and started marketing to anyone who wanted traffic.

But that is a bit too vague because not everyone wants more traffic is a good fit for my ad agency.

They could just want to be famous on Instagram or YouTube, which is a lot of people, but that doesn’t help me generate more income.

Funny enough, there are more people who are interested in getting Instagram followers than people who want to learn about SEO.

But once you know your target audience, it’s easier to find and perform keyword research. For example, I know that I shouldn’t waste too much time writing articles about Instagram or Twitch even though the search volume is high.

It will just cause me to get irrelevant traffic and waste my time/money.

And that’s the key… especially when it comes to things like SEO or paid ads. The moment you know your target audience, you can perform keyword research correctly and find opportunities that don’t just drive traffic, but more importantly, drive revenue.

Now let’s figure out your target audience.

How to define your target audience: 6 questions to help you

Figuring out your target audience isn’t rocket science. It just comes down to a few simple questions.

6 actually, to be exact.

Go through each of the questions below and you’ll know the exact audience you are targeting.

1. Who are they?

When thinking about who might be your target audience, you must consider who are the people who identify with your brand.

One way to find out is to monitor who follows, likes, shares, and comments on your posts on social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

If someone is willing to engage with you, then chances are they are your target.

But in many cases, your ideal audience may not always be on the social web. They might be inactive on social media but buy from your company frequently or sign up for your services.

Even those who bought from you only once must be considered a part of your target audience, as someone who bought once might buy again.

There is no point in making a great effort to sell if you don’t make a similar effort to keep the customers you have already gained.

Customers like to feel special, and that is why the post-sales process is so important. Your relationship with the customer must remain even after the purchase is completed.

2. What are their greatest difficulties, problems, or desires?

What is cool, interesting, and good for you might not be for the customer.

You can’t think only of yourself when it’s time to define the difficulties, problems, and desires of your target audience. You must put yourself in their shoes.

Don’t make offers based on what you think. Make them according to research grounded in data, previous experiences, and analysis of your potential customers’ behavior.

Understand the greatest difficulties your audience faces to try to help solve them.

3. Where do they find the information they need daily?

Everyone needs information.

Every day you are surrounded by tons of information on the channels that you follow, but when you need it the most, where do you go to find that information?

Identify the communication channels most appropriate to your target audience and try to talk to them using a specific language from their universe.

For example, I know my target audience will either read marketing blogs or spend a lot of time on social sites like YouTube and LinkedIn consuming information.

4. What is the benefit of your product?

Everyone wants solutions for their problems and to make their lives easier. This is a collective desire and it’s no different for your target audience.

Think a little about your product and the problem of your target audience. What benefits does your product or service offer? What can it do to solve those problems? What is the main value offer?

With so much competition, you must try to find your competitive advantage in your niche and always try to improve your product, offering something extra that others do not.

5. What draws their attention negatively?

Being optimistic helps a lot, but thinking about the negatives can also help, especially when we talk about target audiences.

Better than considering what your audience wants, you can consider what it definitely doesn’t want, what it considers negative, and what it avoids.

With this powerful information in hand, you may have more chances to captivate your potential customers.

Avoiding what they consider negative is the first step to gain their approval. After that, you only need to apply other strategies to do efficient marketing.

6. Who do they trust?

Trust is everything to your target audience. No one purchases a product or service from a company they don’t know or trust.

This is why reviews on Amazon are read and so important for sellers. They know it builds trust… it’s also helped Amazon become a trillion-dollar company.

Even though this is the last question to define target audiences, it is one of the most important ones.

This is why the reputation of your company is so important. Taking care of the relationship with your customers is essential as they will spread information about your brand on the internet and to their friends and family.

If you get good reviews, have positive comments, and garner a great reputation, this will be the base for potential customers to feel motivated to buy from you.

Creating customized content for your audience

Now that you know your audience, let’s get to the fun stuff. Let’s create content for them.

Everyone creates content, right? Just look at Google if you don’t believe me.

You just have to put a keyword on Google and you will see thousands if not millions of results for each keyword.

When you research “best earbuds” on Google, this is what you see:

First, there are options of products from Google Shopping, with ads and prices for different earphones for various audiences, needs, and tastes.

Next, there is a list of sites and blogs with information about different types of earphones and comparisons:

There is no shortage of content about this subject or any other that you can search for. Anyone can create and publish text with no barriers.

The question is how you can make this content more personalized and attractive for your consumer.

Everyone produces content. Millions of publications are posted every day.

The secret though is to create content that targets your ideal customer and no one else. Generic content may produce more traffic, but it will also produce fewer sales.

To find what your target audience is searching for, you can use Ubersuggest. Just type in a keyword related to your audience.

From there, on the left-hand navigation, click on “keyword ideas.” You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like the one below.

You now have topics to choose from. Not all of them will be a good fit but some will.

I recommend that you go after the long-tail terms, such as “best earbuds for running” (assuming your target audience is active). The more generic terms like “best earbuds” will drive traffic and a few sales, but it won’t convert as well as more specific terms.

The same goes if you are doing keyword research for the service industry or even the B2B space.

Types of content to create

Once you have a list of keywords you want to target, you might be confused as to what type of content you should be creating.

You’ll want to create content based on your funnel. In essence, you want to cover each step of the funnel.

The top of the funnel involves content created for visitors and leads, that is, people that might access your site, blog, or social networks by chance.

When thinking about the top of the funnel, the idea is to create materials with more general subjects, with clear and easily accessible language.

It could be educational content, including clarifications or curiosities about your product or service or something somehow related to your industry.

The middle of the funnel is when the conversions happen. In other words, in this stage, the person who has a problem and the intention to solve it considers the purchase of your product or service.

It’s the middle of the road, but it is not the sale itself, because it’s still only about ideas. It’s in the middle of the funnel that you get closer to your target audience and generate more identification.

Next: bottom of the funnel content. This content focuses more on your product or service.

Here you can introduce details about functions, benefits, and other direct information about your product or service.

It is far more likely to convert here as this particular audience has practically decided to buy already and you are only going to give them a final push.

Conclusion

I’m hoping this article saves you from making the big mistake I made.

But knowing your target audience isn’t enough, though. It doesn’t guarantee success. You still need to create and market your content. That’s why I covered keyword research in this article as well.

Once you create content, you may also want to check out these guides as they will help you attract the right people to your site:

• 17 content marketing strategies to improve engagement
• Social media: how to make the most of your investment
• Customer prospecting: learn to prospect customers and sell more
• Optimize your site so you can rank #1 on Google

So have you figured out your target audience yet?

The post How to Find Your Target Audience appeared first on Neil Patel.

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