Consumer engagement is the key to success for SMEs. For growing numbers, social media has become their channel of choice for connecting and interacting with their customers, but how many are getting social networking right?
Often they dive straight into Twitter and Facebook without thinking it through, posting only when they have time, or simply using their social media presence to roll out the latest ad campaign, none of which is likely to enhance customer engagement.
What they need is a strategy, to ensure that limited resources are used effectively and social media engagement delivers maximum value.
Most small business owners are time poor, and while the temptation to delegate or even outsource their social media management is understandable, it is also a mistake.
"This is all about authenticity," says social media consultant Nigel Temple, founder of The Marketing Compass. "Nobody understands their business as well as they do. It is important that they start using the social networks themselves to understand how they work, and how to make them work for their business."
An effective strategy starts with the marketing plan and customer segmentation, which in turn feeds a content marketing plan. But they must be clear on their business objectives from the start.
Is their goal to find more business leads through LinkedIn, or drive website traffic via Twitter? Or is the overall aim simply to raise the business profile?
Then they need to select the right social media platforms.
Verity Clarke, account director at Approach PR, says: "You might think your business should be on Facebook, but you could find your target audience is more likely to spend time on Pinterest or Instagram.
"Those with a B2B service may want to target industry specific professionals who are active on LinkedIn. Taking the time to research your audience will lead you to the right channel."
Knowing your audience is also crucial in deciding on the content to be shared, the tone of voice to use, and the frequency of posts. And all of this must be carefully monitored. But how many business owners have time to spend checking into their various social media accounts to see who is following them, who is replying to them, and who could be a potential new client?
Fortunately there are plenty of social media tools available, many of them free or very low cost, that can take all the hard work out of it.
Social media marketing company CubeSocial offers an online CRM tool that can help business owners get maximum return on their social media activity with minimal time input.
Co-founder and CEO Linda Cheung says: "The system is designed so that they can check and respond to social media mentions across all platforms, see the profiles of new followers - potential new clients – and review the activities of important contacts that they have tagged, in just ten minutes."
It is also important to be able to measure the success of the social media posts, tweets and updates. Services such as bitly.com, which produces web-shortening links, can also track clicks to specific links on the small business website, to measure any increase in web traffic via social media.
Some of the platforms themselves, including Facebook and LinkedIn, provide useful data around specific posts and the numbers of people they have reached.
Social Insights is a useful tool, provided by digital communications company O2, that allows small business users to benchmark the success of their social media activity against other SMEs in the same sector and region.
All of these can be extremely valuable to SMEs in monitoring the effectiveness of their social media campaigns and in the further development of their social media strategy, as it becomes clear what it is their audience wants to hear, and conversely, what they don't.
As tempting as it might be to talk about your own product or service on social media, you should avoid doing it, says Alex MacLaverty, managing director at communications company Hotwire.
"A good rule of thumb is to spend around 10% of your time talking about your own business. Engaging with the latest developments in your sector and commenting on industry trends is a great way to introduce your business to new influential networks," he says.
It also pays to think of social media as your customer service department. New and growing companies go through huge amounts of change, and customer feedback gleaned via a sound social media strategy can play a vital role in developing products and services and shaping brand identity.
Responding quickly and efficiently to enquiries about your products or your business through social media also makes the customer feel good about your brand and more likely to engage with your business.
Nigel Temple adds: "Customers love social media as it gives them a direct voice, so your role as the business owner is to strategically become part of the conversation."
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This content has been paid for and produced to a brief agreed with O2 Business, whose brand it displays
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