You know your business needs a social media strategy, but where are you supposed to start? With so many platforms and new trends emerging daily, it can feel impossible to keep up or be effective with your social media posts.

Don't worry, though. We've got three need-to-know social media for small business tips that will set you up for success.

Social Media for Small Businesses

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…all different, yet extremely valuable for your small business. If you’re using these social media channels but are unsure how they can help your business, you’ve come to the right spot.

To begin, you’ll want to take a step back and start at square one.

Create a strategy (and adjust as need be).

You don’t go to the grocery store without your shopping list, right? Well, we hope you don't. And, the same goes for your social media strategy. Before you dive in and start writing posts, you need to create a strategy.

To create a plan, you should always start with goals. This will give you something to work toward and provide a clear vision for your strategy.

Whether you want to reach a certain amount of users each week or improve your engagement, your goals should be different for each social media platform.

And, if you set unreachable social media goals for your business, don’t panic! Adjust your goals to a reasonable level but come back to your original goal as you hit certain milestones.

Remember, this is an essential step toward social media success, so don't skip it!

Plan your posts in advance.

After you create your strategy, you still shouldn’t randomly post on your social media channels. The next step is to plan your posts.

An editorial or content calendar is there to help you organize and plan your social posts. Start small and plan a week out in advance. As you get the hang of it, you can move to two weeks or even a month or two in advance if you’re feeling ambitious.

There are a few things you should consider when deciding what you should post:

• Sales or specials
• National holidays
• Themed posts, such as “Tip Tuesday” or “Fact Friday”
• Employee spotlights
• Business announcements

Planning these posts out allows you to create a consistent posting schedule, which helps your followers to continue to engage with your page and posts on a normal basis. Consistent posting = more exposure.

We would all be lost without the calendars on our phones, and your social media would be lost without its content calendar.

Choose quality over quantity.

Think about what business pages you follow as well as the business pages you’ve unfollowed. Perhaps you unfollowed them because they were posting too often, or their posts weren’t engaging.

Now think about your social media business pages. Would you follow them? If your answer was no, it’s time to take a step back and think about the quality of your posts rather than the quantity.

It may seem like you have to post every day or multiple times per day to compete with bigger companies, but that’s not always the case.

Three high-quality social posts that include graphics will be more successful than seven just-text posts. It’s easy to push content out to your social channels, but it’s important to create quality posts that will make your audience want to return and engage with your posts.

Bringing It Together

Strategizing, implementing a plan and creating quality work will help give your business a boost when it comes to your social media. Putting all three of these items in place will help keep your followers engaged and keep them coming back for more.

Need help with your social media strategy? Then our social media plan may be right for you.