Are you or anyone else you know a small business owner with big dreams and a small budget? Know you should do social media marketing, but can’t afford to hire someone, and also don’t know where to start? You’re in good company!
I have walked a mile or more in your shoes! Want to skip right to the actionable items?
For the first time in my career I launched a new company. Having spent most of my career with smaller companies in growth mode, I’ve worked in many different capacities. “Jack of all trades, master of none” as the saying goes. I was confident I could run a company after having experience in most aspects of growing and operating a business. Thankfully I was right. And it was so much harder than I thought.
I knew startup costs would be more than what I expected, with revenues lower than what I expected. A bad combo. What I didn’t realize was how personally you take a bad day/week/month (like serious, near crippling self-doubt). Or how much of my time would be spent marketing instead of running my business. With a tight budget, I’ve got no choice but to DIY the marketing. You need to drum up awareness, but it’s all bootstrapping unless you have a rich uncle.
Lucky for me I worked for a PR/marketing/advertising firm and also worked in sales and marketing for other companies. I leaned heavily on those skills and had to learn new ones since I could no longer afford to hire experts to help fulfill the tasks. Photographer/Videographer? Me. Video editor? Me. Social media manager? Me. Writer? Me. Event planner? You get the point, it’s also me.
So when I’ve gotten positive reviews about my marketing efforts, it made me happy. At least I’m doing something well. And it also feels funny because I’m winging a lot of it. I have worked with some amazing marketers so I know I’m mediocre on my best day. What it made me realize though is that my prior experiences have gifted me with some skills that not all small business owners are fortunate enough to possess. So in 2024, I vow two things.
To continue to educate myself and up my game
To share some easy to follow secrets that will allow busy-as-heck small business owners to DIY their own marketing (no fancy marketing jargon here, cuz I don’t know those words either)
Four tips you can use now:
In this intro I’m not going to go into great detail, but I’ll get you started. And I’m going way back to the very beginning. If your company is new or you’re new to marketing for it, you’ll need to know a few things.
You have to put yourself out there. And by “there” I mean social media. It’s a free and relatively easy way to market your company, find your ideal customer, and relate to them. You have to show your face, and it has to be you. It’s very awkward and hard, trust me. Believe it or not, I am very uncomfortable posting on social media, especially pictures and videos of myself. I can’t decide what’s worse – when my hair is behaving and I have no ideas, or when I have a great idea and my hair is huge and frizzy. It’s crucial for small businesses - people will buy from someone they know, like, and trust. You, your story, and your personality are what will draw people to your business.
Action item: Whip out your selfie camera and record a short video of yourself talking about your dream. When you’re new or getting started, this is a good weekly activity.
The good news is that social media is social. You won’t have to write fancy-sounding stuff. Just be yourself, use your own words, talk conversationally. Interact with commenters. Follow and interact with other business’ social media accounts. Message new followers. This will help you grow your audience when you’re new. Also set expectations, this isn’t an overnight success here – developing new relationships and turning them into customers will take time. I sell $3,000 electric bicycles, takes me 6 months or more to turn a new social media friend into a customer. Less expensive products and services can convert faster.
Action item: Schedule time in the morning while having coffee and/or in the evening when your housemates are watching t.v. To remove temptation, disable notifications on your phone so you only look at social media during your scheduled time.
Your story and your “why” are very important to share when you’re new, and periodically along the way as you grow your audience. You can’t make it all about you, more on that later. It’s a great intro. Tell about you, tell about your background, what you’re passionate about, what you do/how you help people, and why you do what you do. Super helpful if you don’t have customers yet. And if you’re stuck, ask friends and family what makes you special. I was “lucky” enough to go through a traumatic career interruption in the middle of the worst of the COVID lockdowns, made for an interesting backstory!
Action item: sketch out some bullet points and divide up your story into several (much) shorter stories. Topics you could talk about for about 30 second to 1 minute.
You won’t want to look “fly by night”, so consistency is important. Post daily – once or maybe twice. Videos 3 times per week, give or take, and the rest photos. Avoid text-only posts unless you’re a big X (Twitter) user. Eventually you’ll want to plan and schedule posts in advance, but when you’re new there’s a lot of trial and error. You might be surprised to see what content resonates with people, I know I was. More on that later.
Action item: Add reminders on your calendar, set goals for how often and the type of content you’ll post. At the end of each week, go back and analyze the top performing posts, you’ll want to post more of that content.
There’s a lot more to explore. If you’re a business owner who has just started or who knows you should do social media marketing and you don’t know where to start, I hope this gave some ideas and wasn’t too overwhelming. Those of you already into your journey, please share your own tips. And we do love a good horror story too!
Share with someone who needs this, and follow me for more tips you can use to DIY your marketing.
Comments