Social media for business
Learn about social media platforms and how to use them effectively.
About social media
Social media is an easy, affordable and effective way to promote your business and connect with customers.
Use social media to:
- attract new customers
- grow your market, including overseas
- build loyalty and trust in your brand
- interact directly with customers in real time
- advertise and sell your products or services
- drive traffic to your website
- see what people are saying about your business
- keep an eye on your competitors.
Choosing social media platforms
There are many social media platforms, and not all of them will be right for your business. Here are some things to consider when choosing a social media platform.
Target audience
There’s no point in joining a social media platform unless your target customers are using it.
Think about the people you want to engage, including their age, gender and interests. Then choose the platforms they are most likely to use.
You can do market research to find out what platforms your customers are on.
Your goals
Consider what you want your social media presence to achieve. You could be trying to:
- get new customers
- communicate with existing customers
- position yourself as an expert in your field
- promote your brand to a new market.
You might like to refer back to your business plan or marketing plan.
Competitors
Research the social media platforms your competitors use and see if they could work for you too.
Most platforms recommend content to users based on what they already engage with. That means you’ve got a chance to convert your competitors’ customers into your customers.
Your time and resources
It takes time and effort to manage each social media channel.
Consider what you can realistically do when deciding how many platforms to sign up for. It’s better to use 1 or 2 social media channels well than a lot of platforms badly.
Popular social media platforms
Below are some of the main social media platforms. They are listed in rough order of popularity based on the number of active users.
Facebook is the world’s largest social networking site. You can create a page for your business and use it to post photos, videos and events.
Facebook is good for:
- communicating directly with customers
- building a community around your brand
- targeted advertising
- reaching people over 18.
YouTube is the most popular video-sharing platform. It is good for:
- building your brand with longer videos that inform or entertain
- demonstrating your products or services
- showing off your expert knowledge
- cross-promoting on other users’ channels
- reaching people of all ages.
Instagram is a platform for sharing photos and videos. It is good for:
- building brand awareness
- promoting consumer products that have visual appeal
- targeted advertising
- reaching people of all ages, particularly 18- to 44-year-olds.
TikTok is a platform for sharing short videos. It is designed for mobile devices.
TikTok is good for:
- reaching teenagers and young adults
- sharing fun, authentic videos of less than 60 seconds.
Snapchat is an instant messaging app used for sharing photos and short videos. Posts are usually only available to users for a short time.
Snapchat is good for:
- reaching people under 35
- fun, light-hearted content
- targeted advertising.
X lets users publicly post short messages, videos and images. It is good for:
- sharing news, updates and promotions
- communicating directly with customers
- reaching 25- to 50-year-olds, particularly men.
Pinterest lets users discover and save products, recipes, home inspiration and other ideas.
Pinterest is good for:
- reaching women
- home, fashion, product design and food businesses
- directing traffic to your website, especially if you have a blog.
LinkedIn is a work-focused social network. It is good for:
- reaching professionals and other business owners
- promoting yourself as an expert in your field
- recruiting staff.
Creating social media content
Top tips for social content
- Think carefully about the sort of content your customers are interested in.
- Focus on images and videos. Visual posts are more engaging than plain text.
- Don’t go for the ‘hard sell’. Sharing information with no direct sales pitch is a great way to build your brand and fanbase.
- Plan and create content in advance. Use a content calendar to keep track of what you have coming up.
Organic vs paid content
Social media posts can either be organic or paid.
Organic content won’t cost you anything to post. But the number of people who see it will depend on:
- how many followers you have
- the platform’s algorithms.
Paid content is a type of advertising. You pay the platform to show your post to more users, including people who don’t follow you. You can choose the types of people who will see the post.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Optimise your social media content to show up higher in a platform’s search results.
- Think about the keywords your customers are likely to use when searching for this type of content.
- Use some of these keywords in the text of your social media content.
- Make sure the text still reads naturally. Write for people first, search engines second.
Stay active
A neglected social media presence can be worse than no social media presence at all.
Post regularly to show followers you’re still in business and ready to help.
Managing your social media channels
Social media needs ongoing management to be successful.
If you’re using more than one platform, consider getting a social media management system to manage all your channels in one place.
Tips for scheduling content
- Post regularly, but not too often – 3 to 5 times a week is ideal for most platforms.
- Post when your customers are most likely to be online.
- Look for special days, events or trends you can use in your posts.
- Use a social media management system to schedule posts in advance.
Monitoring channels
Customers on social media expect quick responses. Check your channels at least once a day to reply to comments and direct messages.
Social media management tools have built in ‘listening’ features. You can use these to track what people on social media are saying about your business and any other topics.
Complaints and negative reviews
Customers can use social media to make complaints or leave negative reviews for your business.
Tips for handling complaints on social media:
- Don’t delete a public complaint or review. This will only annoy the customer more. An exception is if the customer uses offensive or threatening language.
- Respond quickly. This shows the customer making the complaint and your other customers that you take their feedback seriously.
- Acknowledge the complaint, even if you don’t agree with it. Don’t give a generic response, and never blame the customer or resort to personal attacks.
- Once you’ve responded publicly, continue the conversation with the customer in private. Use their preferred communication method, like private message, email or phone.
- Update your procedures for managing complaints to include social media.
Measuring success
Most social platforms have features for analysing post data. Looking at this data helps you see the types of content that work best for your customers. You can use this to plan future posts.
A social media management system lets you compare success across platforms. This can help you decide where to devote your social media resources.
Privacy and legal issues
You need to protect your customers’ privacy on social media. Never share anyone’s personal information on your public channels.
Under consumer law, you need to make sure there are no false or misleading claims on your social media. Don’t make any false claims about a product or service, and remove any false or misleading posts made by others.
Find out more about privacy
Read about social media and Australian Consumer Law
Cyber security
Like any online platform, social media has security risks. To avoid your social media accounts getting hacked:
- choose strong passwords
- turn on multi-factor authentication
- teach your employees about cybersecurity
- only share social media passwords with staff that need them
- change your passwords when a staff member leaves your business.
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