Payment Processing Blog

How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Small Local Business

social media insights graph on a phone

Social media has grown to be one of the most powerful marketing tools for businesses and especially small local businesses. 

Every business should take advantage of social media, but small local businesses like yours often underestimate the power of social media. Your customers already spend time online, so it makes sense for you to be there too. A well-designed campaign can generate a lot of buzz for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

You can use social media not only to promote your small business and products but also to engage with your customers and show them you care about them. However, you will need a smart, strategic approach to social media that will help you reach potential customers and grow your small business.

Our team at Penni Payments has put together this guide to help you create your own marketing strategy for your small local business using social media. 


Identify your target audience

The first step to growing your small local business is deciding who you’re trying to reach. This step can be the hardest because it can be difficult to figure out exactly who you are going to be selling to. However, there are steps you can take to narrow it down. 

First, conduct some keyword research. Using a keyword research tool like SEMrush, type a keyword into the search box, and you’ll see a breakdown of its volume, difficulty, variations, and more. You can see the kinds of questions people are asking about this keyword, and you can use the information to see what people are searching for in relation to your business. 

Next, think about who you know who could offer some helpful advice. Do you know anyone who also runs a small business? You can reach out to them and ask them how they use social media. Are they using it to promote their businesses? Do they have any recommendations?

If you have little in common with your target customers, write your personas down in a few sentences. What are their demographics? Where do they hang out on social? What are the main reasons they buy from you?

Once you’re done, take a moment to review your personas. Do they sound like your target customers? Do you have a clear idea who the people are you’re trying to reach?

A key part of identifying your audience is finding out which social media channels they use. If you know that your customers are too young to be interested in Twitter, for example, it wouldn’t make sense for you to start marketing on that platform.

We suggest that you open an Instagram and Facebook business account for marketing your small business. Each of these platforms has billions of users and they are great for sharing visual content and business marketing. 


Define your business marketing goals 

You begin by defining your social media marketing goals. As you're starting your strategy, it's also helpful to think ahead about what kind of results you want to achieve. 

Do you want to build brand awareness? Generate sales? Generate leads? Get customer feedback? Think about your long-term goals, then set interim goals that will help you get to your end goal. 

Now you must think about how you will reach such goals. Is there an allocated amount of revenue to put towards your marketing strategy? We typically suggest that you should put 7 to 12% towards marketing for your small local business. 

You can conduct keyword research to see which hashtags will be most valuable to your marketing strategy, for example, #shoplocalsupportsmallbusiness.

You can also think about running campaigns or joining in a collaboration with other small businesses and holding a giveaway. 


Decide what kind of content you will create

Once you know who you’re trying to reach, it’s time to figure out what kind of content you should be creating. For example, if you sell green products, focus on eco-friendly content and discuss important environmental issues.


You need to ask yourself these questions:

What kind of content will attract customers? 

What kind of content will educate them? 

What kind of content will make them actually want to come back? 

Once you figure that out, you can craft your content accordingly.


You will need to have access to a camera to take photos or videos of your small business. You can keep your content quite simple, but always remember to be creative! Try and make your social media content interesting and engaging. 

You may also want to think about sticking to a specific style or aesthetic when it comes to your content. Are your posts cohesive or do they feel mismatched on your account feed? As social media marketing is all about visuals, spend time curating content that represents the brand of your small business and looks good. 


Come up with a schedule

It’s important to be consistent when it comes to your marketing your small business. Your social media marketing strategy should include a plan for scheduling posts, but that doesn't mean that you should be posting the same thing at the same time every day. To keep your social presence fresh, you can plan different themes or topics for each week.

There are scheduling tools out there that can help you streamline your social media routine so you can spend more time engaging with customers and creating content.


Continue developing customer relationships 

Your company's social media activity is part of your overall marketing strategy, and it helps build your brand. While it can be time-consuming to maintain an active social media presence, it's worth the effort.

Social media can help you build relationships with your customers, and these relationships can translate into higher conversion rates, more repeat purchases, and increased referrals.

It will help you engage customers, whether they're asking questions, sharing content, or just adding comments. In turn, it can help you retain existing customers, improve customer service, and build brand loyalty.


Utilize analytics 

Social media analytics tools can also help you make sense of the data you're collecting, such as which posts are getting the most engagement, which type of content your audience loves, and which days of the week and times of the day are the most effective for posting to your social networks.

Continue monitoring your social media analytics as it will help your entire business marketing strategy.

Ready to start growing your small business? Then you're ready to talk to a team member at Penni Payments to set up your low-rate payment processing account. Reach out today to see how we can help you grow your business.