Planning And Managing Social Media For Small Businesses

Determine your social media goal and strategy

Managing social media for a small business starts with a plan. You need to decide what you want to accomplish with social media. There are many ways to create a buzz about your business. Do you want to create brand awareness? Generate more leads? Do you want to grow your social media presence? Generating brand awareness is a great place to start for a new business.

To generate awareness of your brand and to connect with your audience, you can do things like share articles, write blog posts, create polls, host contests, post ads, post about the company’s culture and values, and give away free materials like videos, guides, or templates.

Once you understand your social media goal, you can move on to the next step of the plan. Keep in mind that your social strategy should, and will, change as your business grows, so don’t worry about pinning down every single thing five years into the future. Your social strategy should move as you move and grow.

learn how to plan your content in Step 2

Know your brand voice and target audience

Put simply, people buy from brands they trust. Building trust is what a company (and its social channels) should do. Trust comes from consistency and relatability and depends on you to deliver what you promise.

Knowing your target audience matters. Knowing how you speak to them also matters. Does your brand have a cheery, enthusiastic voice? Is it matter-of-fact and focused on sharing stats? Does it make jokes, puns, or memes? In most cases, a brand is a reflection of the person that runs it. You want your personality to shine through, and that’s how people begin to trust you.

Once you decide on a brand voice that speaks well to your target audience, you want to maintain that brand voice throughout all your social platforms. If you don’t, you run the risk of people losing their trust in you.

see which platforms suit your brand

Research which social media channels to use

Researching and choosing the right platform is another important step in managing social media for small businesses. When first starting out on your social media journey, we recommend starting off with only two social media platforms. Keeping up multiple channels is time-consuming, and the content you have to make for each platform grows the more you take on. You should do some research into each platform, how they work, and what content people like consuming on that platform.

Instagram

Best for

Selling products and services through visual content

Tone

Playful and creative; overly salesy content performs poorly

Content style

Images, short videos, and stories

LinkedIn

Best for

Professional networking and educational content

Tone

Personal and honest; real-life experience performs well

Content style

Written posts, articles, and career stories

Facebook

Best for

Educational and tip-based content for broad audiences

Tone

Informative and community-focused

Content style

Posts, groups, and longer-form updates

Pinterest

Best for

Creative industries and visual discovery

Tone

Inspirational and project-oriented

Content style

Images and infographics organized into boards

How to Sell Without Being Salesy

First off, no one likes to be brazenly sold too. If you’re too “salesy,” you will find fewer people interacting with your content.

Audiences respond to connection. Share your story, your values, or an experience where your product improved someone’s life. That connection builds trust with your audience. Audiences that trust the people behind the brand are more likely to buy.

Plan your post frequency

Research is your very best friend. Do some basic research into your industry and see when your type of industry posts are engaged with the most.

All platforms claim that you need to post a certain amount each week to get the most interaction with your brand. That can vary from every day, three times a week to once a week. You don’t need to post every day on any social media platform unless you want to.

When you’re first starting out, usually 2-3 times a week on any platform is a great place to start. Each platform does have its own recommended posting schedule, but how much you post depends on you and your industry. Generally speaking, the more you post, the more eyes will be on your content.

Decide how often you want to post, and just go for it. You won’t have an idea if you’re posting too much or too little until you give it a shot. But remember to only post as often as you can consistently keep up with.

Plan your content

A blog is one way to produce content. If you don’t have a blog for your website yet, you should. Not only does a blog help people find you with search engines, but it keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more of you and your brand, and it makes a great social media post.

Besides blog posts, you’ll have to decide the types of posts you’ll post. You’ll want to post what your audience likes, so try asking them outright. Do they like text posts? Picture and text posts? Educational posts? Jokes? Memes?

Don’t be afraid to try several different types of content. Experimenting is part of the process, and don’t be upset if something flops. If something does flop, you’ve just learned that’s not the kind of content your audience wants.

Use a social media management tool

Using a social media management tool saves you time. You create the post, schedule it in the platform, and the tool publishes it hands-free. This approach lets you batch your content creation into focused blocks of time.

Some social media management tools can be expensive. Free tools might not cover the platforms you plan to use or offer enough features. Make sure to check out all your options before deciding what you want.

How to Create a Simple Content Calendar

A content calendar is a schedule that maps out what you will post, on which platform, and on which date. Small business owners use content calendars to stay consistent without scrambling for ideas at the last minute.

Start with one week at a time. List every platform you post on. Assign a content type to each posting day: one educational post, one brand story post, and one repurposed blog post works well for a three-day-per-week schedule.

Use a free tool like Google Sheets or a notes app to track your calendar. Each row should include the date, the platform, the content type, and the post status. Review the calendar at the start of each week and adjust based on your analytics.

Batch your content creation on one day each week. Write all your captions, resize all your images, and upload everything to your scheduling tool at once. Batching reduces daily decision fatigue and keeps your posting routine consistent.

Engage with your audience

Engaging with your followers is the most important thing you can do on social media. If you want to build brand trust and build a community around your brand, you must make the effort to respond to your audience when they interact with your brand online.

If engagement feels overwhelming, block some time out of your day to respond to your messages and comments. Blocking off fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the afternoon to engage with your audience will be a good place to start to build some trust with your audience. Don’t forget to look for people interacting with your content right after you post!

Finally, remember your brand voice when you’re responding to your audience online.

Tag others to bring awareness to your company

Tagging people and companies in your posts will build community and trust with your audience fast. When the person or company you tag returns the tag, your brand reaches their followers too.

Social proof means that other accounts publicly endorsing your brand builds trust with new audiences. Shared tags and mentions give you ready-made content to post.

Use your analytics

Creating content is all about trying new things until you find something that works. Decide what kind of posts you’re going to be making, and make sure to pay attention to your analytics to see what worked for you and what didn’t. If you have a business account, all social media sites have their own analytics section that you can use to learn about what works best.

If you’ve asked your audience what kind of content they like and got a lukewarm response, your analytics will be where you’ll find your true answer. The analytics data is all you need to keep making content your audience will love.

Use social listening

Social listening means monitoring your brand’s social media channels to find mentions of your brand or discussions revolving around topics your brand might benefit from being a part of. This includes if you’re tagged in something or if something is being talked about in your industry. Keeping an eye on trends in your industry is a great source of content for your business.

If you’re interested in using social listening, some social media management tools have it available as part of their paid plans, including Talkwalker. You can also just sign up for a social listening tool itself like Talkwalker, which is free to use!

Social listening will help you trace your following online, find what people engage with most, find spots where people are looking for a solution you may be able to solve, and help you find out which social media channels work best for your brand.

Repurpose your content

If you haven’t been repurposing your content, you should start now. If you’re just starting out making content, plan to repurpose it. If you’re stuck for an idea of what to post, you can often create a new post out of older content.

That old blog post you wrote a year ago? Four months ago? Three days ago? Bring it back to life by taking three facts from it and creating three separate social posts for it. Did you make a post speaking strongly about how you feel about a trend in your industry? Write a blog post about it. Do you have an announcement you want to post on Instagram? Post it across all your channels.

Repurposing your content is the secret to managing social media for small businesses.

It’s important to remember that you can’t expect success in one day or even one week. It takes time and investment to build a community. You may also find that your strategy doesn’t work or a post you make flops. This is a good thing. It means you’ve found something your audience doesn’t like, and from this, you can continue to build content in different directions.

If you run a virtual assistant or medical transcription business, this article can help with social media planning. If you have any more questions about building your social media plan, reach out to us and follow CanScribe on Facebook, Linkedin, or Instagram for more information!

How to Know If Your Social Media Is Working

Every social media platform with a business account includes a built-in analytics dashboard. Check your analytics at least once a week. Look at three numbers: reach (how many people saw your post), engagement rate (how many people interacted with it), and follower growth over time.

A post with high reach but low engagement tells you the content appeared in feeds but did not connect. A post with low reach but high engagement tells you the content resonated with the people who saw it. Use both signals together to decide what to post more of.

Track your results in a simple spreadsheet. Record the date, platform, content type, reach, and engagement for each post. After four weeks, patterns will emerge. Double down on the content types that consistently earn the highest engagement.

Your follower count is a vanity metric on its own. Focus instead on whether your audience takes actions: clicking your links, sending messages, or visiting your website. Those actions indicate that your social media routine is building real business value.