If there is little-to-no activity on your social media pages, it’s likely you haven’t figured out how to attract prospects and build community with your target audience.

Every small business owner should know the 6 C’s of social media marketing; The first step is to connect through social media, then communicate with your network, develop compelling content-- do that consistently and then you’ll become a part of the community and turn those relationships into commerce.

Social media is attraction marketing, which means you are pulling your target customer into your business. Once you pull in the audience, get them involved. Social media can accomplish strategic business goals like generating leads, providing customer feedback and present your business with an opportunity to deliver exceptional customer service, but only if the foundation is in place.

Social media engagement is an essential part of marketing, what and how you share online will determine whether or not you’ll get a response. Here are 7 steps to grow your small business with social media.

1. Develop a plan

Small businesses need to develop a plan that helps build social media engagement. It should include the company voice, frequency of content, editorial calendar, and what actions you want people to take. You have to be strategic about selling on social media and be careful not to start pitching before your audience likes, knows, and trusts you. Don’t sell first, focus on building relationships.

2. Talk Back

A great conversation takes at least two people. If someone in your community asks a question or makes a statement, it’s important to respond quickly.  You should be checking in live on your social media accounts three times a day just to respond. Add a visual hook and draw readers in by sharing beautiful or funny photos and links to resources that will help them. Use tools like Twitter search and #hashtags to join conversations that are already going on.

3. Create a Community

Set up a LinkedIn or Facebook group to build a tribe of people that share an interest in your topic. Start by inviting current friends and connections to join. Set rules for the group and make sure you manage it or have an assistant who will be in charge of monitoring the group. If you leave the group open, it’s searchable in the sites directory and your community can organically grow. 

Engage fans by appointing frequent participants as ambassadors. Offer access to your products or services in exchange for the ambassadors keeping the group active by answering questions for the community. After you add value over time, you can leverage the group for market research or as leads to fill your sales pipeline.

4. Expand Your Community

Start interacting with those outside your new community via Twitter chats. These are a simple way to reach and expand your market by interacting with like-minded users. Questions are introduced and users engage in meaningful conversation surrounding their interests for about an hour. This is a great way to meet other people and promote the services and principles of your business. Try #Smallbizchat every Wed from 8-9pm ET on Twitter to get more great tips on how to grow a small business and leverage social media.

Here’s how to participate in #smallbizchat.

5. Make it About Them

Everyone listens to the same station WIIFM, or What’s In It For Me FM. As you build friends, followers and subscribers, you want them to feel that what you are sharing is uniquely tailored to their needs. Have users submit their questions or suggestions for new content.  Consider highlighting a fan of the week on your page. Everyone loves to see their name in lights, and it’s a great way to foster engagement.

6. Offer a Reward

Everybody enjoys a good gift. Work with a strategic partner to give away goodies or run a contest that gets users to take action. Squishable ran an art contest on their Facebook page to get customers to take action. Magnolia Bakery engages users with mini cupcakes offers that bring in customers. Create a grand prize giveaway, and invite customers and fans to post videos or photos online, sharing how they enjoy your product for a chance to win.

7. Measure What Matters

The great thing about social media is it’s instant. If you make a post or send a tweet and no one responds, then it tells you that you are either posting at a time when your audience is not active or you are not sharing information that’s compelling. Aside from comments or shares, you can leverage free services like Facebook Insights, Bitly and TweetReach to measure the number of people you’re reaching over time.

Mastering these techniques will improve your relationship with potential customers. And when you’re really good, current buyers will become referrers, evangelist and word-of-mouth champions for your small business. If you boost your engagement, you will boost your sales.

Which of these actions will you take to get potential customers engaged?

Get more tips on social media for your small business with the free Salesforce ebook at the button below.