If you’re operating a business in 2023, you know how important social media is to your success. It’s a great way to get new customers in your door, and more eyes on your promotions, products, and services! That being said, with more options and platforms pop-up the competition is only continuing to increase. It takes more and more to stand out from the field, especially in crowded market spaces. That’s why we are going to lay out 6 tips to grow your business through social media!

This may seem like an obvious one, but it’s always worth repeating! Just about every social media platform ranks your content in its algorithm based on how much engagement your post and account gets. That’s why it’s critical to create content with engagement in mind. Think about what type of images, videos, and captions will drive users on the platform to comment, like, share your content – or even just watch it until it’s finished!

This engagement can be achieved with posing questions to your viewers, suggesting to tag people if they would relate the image (“tag someone who would do this”), or even guiding viewers to send the post to people. This can be incredibly effective as the engagement on the post will positively affect it in the algorithm AND get it directly in front of viewers not familiar with your business.

Creating regular social media content can seem like a daunting task for small business owners – but there are tons of amazing ways to leverage user-generated content (UGC) into helping your business. UGC is essentially just pictures, videos, reviews, or text that comes from your audience. Often it will be a picture one of your clients or customers will tag you in with them using your product, eating at your restaurant, etc. You should take full advantage of this content, but MAKE SURE you have full permission from the poster if you don’t want to end up in hot water.

User-generated content is a great way to show your audience real-world experiences other customers are having interacting with your business. For example, it’s a positive review at your food establishment, it will entice other viewers to come in and try it themselves!

Social media platforms are constantly changing over time, so it’s important to pay attention to what social media formats are currently popular! In 2023 the biggest hit on social media has been, and continues to be, short form video – specifically in the vertical format. With the rise of TikTok and popularity of Instagram + Facebook Reels, quick vertical videos have become the all the rage for video content – and super popular with platform users!

With tons of phones, tablets, and more readily available to shoot vertical video, it’s never been easy to make quick engaging vertical video content aimed at capturing people’s attention! Plus, it means the same content can be used across a lot of social media platforms, which is great! Whether it’s a video of you explaining a service, sharing a story, breaking down a recipe, or showing off a new product – make sure you give vertical video platforms a try!

Influencer Marketing has been quite the buzz word in the past few years, but it really can be a powerful tool. If you’re not familiar, influencer marketing is the concept of prominent social media figures promoting a business or products in exchange for compensation – oftentimes money, product deals, affiliate link revenue, and more! Businesses will pick influencers in relevant market spaces so their social media audience would have direct interest in the business being promoted. For example, if you were selling rock climbing chalk you’d be sure to work with an influencer with a sizable audience who is making videos about rock climbing in their area.

While this may seem like a large undertaking that can be very expensive, influencers can be surprisingly affordable – especially if you focus on micro-influencers. Micro-influencers follow the same ideology as an influencer but just have a smaller, more localized or niche audience, which can be a huge asset if you have a business targeting a very specific demographic! Plus, micro influencers on the whole will be a lot more cost-effective than an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers!

Businesses collaborating with one another can be a very powerful tool in any capacity, but it can be incredibly impactful on social media. Working alongside another business or influencer will expose your business to a completely different audience and potentially lead to new revenue! Plus, depending on the collaboration you’re doing, it can cost next-to-nothing!

Platforms like Instagram even have ways to co-display posts using their Collaborate function, so it shows on both pages newsfeeds at the same time. The Instagram collaboration function even directly tags both accounts on every version of the post, so it’s easy to see all parties involved! Whether it’s an event, giveaway, or more – give social media collaboration a try!

Running a giveaway is one of the tried-and-true social media techniques, but it can still provide some great results. You can give away products, services, tickets, giftcards, and more – but the aim is to get the most eyes on your competition and business as possible! We always recommend having a few different qualifiers to enter the social media competition, specifically sharing the post on your story or tagging others!

Obviously there is an assumed cost of what you’re giving away, but it can easily pay off with the new followers and brand recognition you’ll be getting out of it. Be sure to not run competitions too frequently or it’ll take some of the wind out of your sales as people know another one will come soon!

In the end, social media is a constantly changing game where consistency and creativity will always be rewarded. The first step is always building an engaged audience and knowing exactly who’s in it! Once you have your audience identified, it makes it easier to craft campaigns that will reach them, expedite your growth, and ultimately drive revenue.