Around 73% of adults online use social networking sites and they spend 27% of all their time online on these networks. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more are where today’s consumers are hanging out.

This social group includes many of your customers and prospects, meaning your business simply can’t afford to skip having a social presence. If you already have active accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and more, consider the tips below for potential tweaks you can make to update your existing social media marketing strategy. 

1. Choose Your Goals

A great way to begin is to decide what your business goals are in the first place. Make them SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed. Do you want to increase sales? Retain more customers? As you pinpoint your goals, you can also get more clear-cut. “Build brand awareness by 10% in six months” is one example. However, increasing your number of followers, while helpful for expanding your audience reach, should not be the main focus of your social media efforts.

2. Know Your Audience

Social media marketing is no different from any other marketing tactic in that you always need to identify your audience so you can talk to them in the best way. Makes sense, right? Here’s a tip: they are likely very similar to your current customers. This is important to recognize because if your prospects are, say, sales managers, your approach to them via social media would be very different than if your prospects are small business owners.

3. Choose Your Platforms

Don’t put all your effort into Facebook if most of your audience uses another platform, like LinkedIn. To get this right, ask five to 10 of your customers about their social media activities. Use platforms like the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud to scour a variety of social sites and industry blogs to see where people are talking about your brand and products, and discussing the market at large. You can also see what is and isn’t working with your competitors’ social media strategy and social profiles.

4. Choose Your Handles

Do your best to get the same username on all social media networks you intend to use (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.). Chris Penn, VP of Marketing Technology at SHIFT Communications, says an easy way to confirm a moniker can be used across the board is plugging it into a free tool like Namechk.com. If your business name is not available as is, create a username that is as close to the actual name as possible. Feel free to use abbreviations, but only if they are obvious, like “inc” or “mgmt.”

5. Choose Your Posts

In general, keep the following in mind when posting on social media. Build trust with your community by showing empathy and interest in them. Be a helpful resource. Don’t just talk about yourself. Lastly, keep it short. A Salesforce Buddy Media study found that tweets containing less than 100 characters received 17% higher engagement than longer tweets. Shorter posts are also better on the other social media platforms.

Get the complete download on Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses by checking out this new free e-book.