Social Media Strategy For Small Businesses: Best Step-By-Step Guide

A small business social media marketing strategy is what you plan to do on social media to achieve your business goals. It allows you to create a sound marketing plan based on your customers’ needs and business goals.

This guide shows how you can create a social media strategy for your small business. Read on.

Before we begin, answer these questions on your notepad or in the comment section below

1. What is your mission, and why do you do what you do?
2. How will creating content on social media help you fulfill your mission?
3. How will social media content benefit your customers and your business in the long run?

An example of a mission statement.

Jumia’s (an African eCommerce platform) mission is To help consumers access millions of goods and services conveniently and at the best prices while opening up a new way for sellers to reach consumers and grow their businesses.

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Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Do a Social Media Audit

Assess the things you’re already doing and find out what seems to be working and what is not doing well. 

And you’ll know which areas to focus on and have direction.

For example, if a post has high interactions like 100 shares and 220 saves, you may want to focus on that kind of post.

On the other hand, you can archive those not getting any engagement or delete them completely.

If a certain caption generates many comments, you can create such comments and track their performance.

Here’s how to determine where you are

Using Instagram (professional account) for demonstration, go to your profile and look for the following:

• Number of followers 
• Your profile’s consistency with your brand (e.g., images, fonts, and colors)

Where to find content interaction on Instagram

On your professional Instagram profile: click on Insights, then click on Engagement and look for the following:

• Post interactions, story interactions, reels interaction, etc.
• Top posts, top story, top reels, etc
• Engaged audience ( top countries, cities gender, top age ranges, etc.)

Where to find the best time to post on Instagram

Your historical perfomance and audience behaviour will determine the best time to post on your Instagram page.

On your Instagram profile, click on Insights, then click on Total Followers to observe:

• How frequently do you post
• Top location
• Age range
• Gender 

Save that data so that you can keep tracking it every week to know your growth. 

You can screenshot the insights or add them to a spreadsheet on Google Sheets.

Consider using a monitoring tool like Hootsuite to manage all your social media pages in one platform or SEMrush if you are a social media manager.

Step 2: Define your social media marketing goals and KPIs

Set goals in line with your business objectives, using the SMART method:

• Specific – e.g., increase buying customers
• Measurable – e.g., get 100 more buying customers
• Achievable – a realistic figure based on your past performance
• Relevant – to your business objectives 
• Time-bound – e.g., in 3 months

How to know if your strategy is reaching your social media goals?

This can be the number of sales, shares, or mentions generated at the end of the month. 

But avoid using vanity metrics like likes for peace of mind.

Note that when tracking sales, you should only count those generated from your social media campaigns to maintain a perspective. 

That is, don’t mix up sales from social media with in-person or other sales. 

You could also have a short survey for your buyers where you ask them, “how did you hear about us?”

Step 3: Define your perfect buyer

Chances are, you already know who your ideal customer is since you have been interacting with them. 

If you don’t already have a following, you can get inspiration from your competitor since their buyers are your potential customers. 

Here’s what to note down when creating a buyer persona profile  

• • Their demographics: age, gender, location, etc.
  • Their psychographics: What are their hobbies, values, goals, etc?
  • Their behavior: Where do they spend their time online, and how do they consume information – books, websites, Influencers, and magazines among others? 
  • What are their goals? 
  • What are their challenges? 
  • The hashtags and brands they follow to understand them better

Knowing your audience will enable you to create messaging that speaks directly to them. Eg content that solves their problems. 

An example of an ideal buyer persona 

A 27-year-old female who lives in Mombasa. She is married with two children and runs a business for a living. She loves to go to the beach in the evening with her family. She tags youtube videos on her Instagram stories and loves to talk about personal development. Her goals are to build a successful online business and free up time to spend with her family. She struggles with a busy schedule because of the business and family. She loves to shop and mostly uses Stripe for her online shopping sprees.

You can get more data from

• interviewing your customers directly or 
• through Instagram polls,
• Instagram & Facebook Q&A, surveys,
• Facebook and Instagram Insights, among others.

Step 4: Research your competitors

Spend some time analyzing your competitors’ websites and social media channels to find opportunities to differentiate yourself and see what has worked for them. You can also use social media listening to analyze your competitors’ activities online, which will inform your strategy.

When doing a competitor analysis, look for:

• Tone of voice 
• The hashtags they use most
• Frequency of posting
• Type of content
• Top posts
• The engaging audience profile, among others

“ take a look at what the big players in your industry are doing. But when. assessing your competition, focus first on those who are the most similar in terms of size and target audience.” says Brent Barnhart.

You can simplify this process using a tool like Sprout Social.

Further read: Competitor analysis tools for social media 

Step 5: Define your value proposition

Now that you have analyzed your competitors, it’s time to determine what will set you apart.

For example,

 You can provide information that isn’t being provided the way you would. 

Think about incentives to go with your products. E.g., Jumia gave me a cord extension and a fridge guard when I bought a fridge from them.

It’s also important to note your weaknesses here. 

Note down why buyers would fail to buy from you. 

For example, I don’t have a website to showcase my products. 

You can now start to see a picture of what needs to be done and where.

Like you may consider having a website in the future.

Step 6: Content types and channels

Examples of social media content types

• Videos – products & educational videos
• Infographics – how-to guides
• Images – ideally, people using your products
• Testimonials
• Online courses & ebooks – like styling guides linked in bio
• Checklists – e.g., wedding checklist for men
• Cheatsheets etc.

Common social media channels

• Tiktok – best for young audiences
• Instagram – best for showcasing your products
• Facebook – most inclusive platform
• LinkedIn – best for B2B sales
• Pinterest – best for visually appealing products targeted to females
• Quora – best for answering and asking questions surrounding your product 

Step 8: Stay on brand

First impression matters.

Well-designed graphics, brand tone, images, and fonts tell your story. 

Try Canva’s brand kit to help you set up your brand colors and fonts.

If you don’t like Canva, there other design tools like Adobe Photoshop and Piktochart.

Look at your competition for inspiration and see what you can learn from them.

Step 9: Set up and optimize your platform’s profile

When setting up your profile, consider where other performing brands are going.

Use your industry keywords and hashtags in your bio. This will ensure that you show up when a potential customer searches your industry keyword. 

Use your bio to:

• Describe who you are
• Why the customer should follow you
• Your achievements
• A clear call to action CTA

Example: The Futur Instagram Profile

Remember to add your contact info, website link, or lead magnet ( something that you give people in exchange for their email address.) Having your client’s contacts will enable you to nurture and sell to them repeatedly in the future. 

Step 10: Content creation

Content creation simply means creating posts, videos, and photos, among others relevant to your target audience.

Your goals and buyer preferences will determine your content format and messaging.

Imagine that you own a men’s clothing store, and your goal is to grow brand awareness for the first quarter of the year. 

You would post content like:

• Behind the scenes, e.g. (how you source out your clothes)
• Educational content ( how to dress for an occasion on a cold day)
• Testimonials ( share reviews from your customers)
• Influential people in your industry wearing your outfits 
• Demonstration of how to purchase your product from your website, among others.

First, you will need to find topics that are relevant to your target audience.

What questions might your ideal buyer have regarding your product or service?

Group the topics into categories. These are called content pillars.

Here’s an example

If you had a fitness brand. You would categorize your pillars as:

• • Nutrition 
  • Motivation 
  • Tutorials 
  • Testimonials 

After breaking them down into categories, you can now research content ideas from each pillar. 

Further read: How to find content for your social media calendar

Tips for generating content ideas

• Mix content types, e.g., videos, carousel posts, stories, etc
• Single out particular content for specific holidays and occasions.
• Use trending subjects in your industry (use Google Trends, and trending hashtags in your platform)
• Create searchable content
• Repurpose old content
• Draw inspiration from competitors
• Use a social media calendar to plan out your workflow and track your content. It will help you take advantage of holidays and seasons relevant to your audience.

Schedule your content

After creating your content drafts, use a social media post scheduler like Canva Scheduler or SocialBee to automate your social media posts.

Step 11. List your business on Google

All you have to do is visit business.google.com. Add your contact information, working hours, address, reviews, and upload great photographs, among others.

You’ll also get a free web page to showcase your brand. 

And your business will now appear in Google Maps.

Step 12: Social advertising and influencer Marketing

Social advertising can be very effective if you have the budget, especially for small businesses. 

Facebook advertising provides incredible tools to help you target and understand your audience.

You can learn more about social media advertising for your small business here.

Like any other marketing tactic, an influencer program requires careful targeting and planning. 

You won’t achieve strategic success by giving away free things to everyone who asks or to you. 

Be intentional when choosing influencers. 

Then set and stick to your budget. 

Further reads:

• Influencer Marketing for Small Businesses
• social media monitoring guide
• social media analytics guide