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Small businesses do not need to be active on every social platform. Set a few measurable goals, choose the channels that fit your customers and available time, plan useful content, respond to people, and use results to refine the plan. Paid promotion is optional; consider it only when you can define what success means and track the outcome.
Start with a few clear goals
Decide what social media should help the business accomplish before choosing platforms or planning posts. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends focusing on a small set of goals rather than pursuing too many at once. Possible goals include:
- Increasing awareness of the business or its brand.
- Strengthening relationships with existing customers.
- Driving visits to a website or supporting sales.
- Encouraging sign-ups to an email list.
- Demonstrating expertise in the business’s field.
Make each goal specific enough to review later. For example, if the priority is website traffic, assess whether social activity is bringing visitors to the site; if the priority is customer service, look at whether questions and concerns are being handled. The SBA’s guidance on setting goals is in its 7 Simple Steps for Mastering Social Media.
Choose platforms your customers use—and your team can maintain
Choose channels based on the customers you want to reach, the kind of business you run, its location, the content you can create, and the time available to manage accounts. The SBA advises small businesses to concentrate on a few suitable channels because maintaining multiple accounts takes effort. Its platform examples in the 2016 guide are dated, not a current ranking of the best networks.
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Use these questions to compare options:
- Audience fit: Are your intended customers likely to use the platform?
- Goal fit: Can it support the outcome you chose, such as discovery, conversation, service, website visits, or sales?
- Content fit: Can you regularly make material that suits the platform and its audience?
- Capacity: Can someone keep the account accurate, active, and responsive?
- Measurement: Do the platform’s available insights help you assess the chosen goal?
There is no universally best platform for every small business. The SBA’s Simple Social Media Guide for Small Businesses discusses focusing effort, planning content, analytics, and advertising benchmarks.
Plan content instead of improvising every post
An editorial calendar helps coordinate seasonal moments, local events, announcements, and promotions ahead of time. It can be a simple calendar or planning document; the purpose is to make publishing more manageable and ensure timely material is not forgotten.
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Plan a useful mix rather than making every post a direct sales pitch. Depending on the business, content might answer common customer questions, offer practical information, show how work gets done, highlight an event, or share an offer. The SBA recommends using a calendar to organize content and promotions in advance in its 2016 guide and its article Is Your Small Business Social Enough?.
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Make social media a customer conversation
Present the business clearly on its social accounts, and make those accounts easy for customers to find in relevant real-world touchpoints. Social media can support customer service as well as promotion: monitor messages and reviews, and respond politely and promptly. The SBA includes customer response and brand representation in its 5 Tips to Make Your Small Business Social Media Savvy.
Decide who is responsible for checking each account and responding. For account access and management, Facebook’s official About Facebook Page access page describes access functions; check that help page for current details before following operational steps.
Measure results against the goal
Review the insights available on the platforms you use and ask whether activity is contributing to the goal you set. Note which content resonates, then adjust the calendar and approach accordingly. A count of reactions or followers may be useful context, but it should not substitute for the outcome the business actually wants to improve.
The SBA’s 2016 guide mentions Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics as examples of tools for understanding audiences and engaging content. Those names and interfaces may have changed; consult each platform’s current official documentation for up-to-date features rather than relying on the older examples. The SBA also recommends setting benchmarks when evaluating advertising.
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Use paid promotion only with a way to evaluate it
Paid posts or ads are optional ways to reach people. Before spending, define the audience, the intended outcome, and a benchmark that will help you judge whether the promotion was worthwhile. Afterward, compare the observed result with that benchmark and decide whether to change, continue, or stop the approach.
There is no source-backed universal advertising budget, conversion rate, or return on ad spend for small businesses. Costs and outcomes depend on the business, audience, platform, and campaign, so use your own measurable results rather than assuming a general figure will apply. The SBA’s social media guide and Is Your Small Business Social Enough? discuss advertising and promotional testing.
How active does a small business need to be?
There is no evidence-backed posting schedule that applies to every business. Choose a pace the team can sustain while keeping information accurate and responding to customers. The SBA reported in an article published June 27, 2020, that 21% of small businesses posted on social media once a month or less. That is a historical figure from 2020, not a current estimate or a recommended frequency.
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