As someone who has been in the marketing industry since 2008, and specializes in digital marketing, the vast majority of small business owners are being exploited by the major corporations when it comes to marketing their business online. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, yet the largest corporations control the wealth. Social media platforms are a business with the sole purpose to maximize profit. So the social media platforms and major search engines are intentionally making it extremely difficult and expensive for business owners to get exposure or even reach 50% of their followers. It will get even difficult has Apple wants to make it extremely difficult for websites and apps to track you. This will make online advertising more expensive for small business owners on social media.

From my experience, 95% or more of small businesses do in fact struggle to generate even $1,000 per month from their online sales, regardless of whether you are a startup in that dreaded first year of operations or just getting your feet wet with social media marketing. As a small business owner, it will realistically cost you, at a minimum, $1,164.99 to pay someone to create and manage just one social media account. (This is how much 407 Media Group charges at the bare minimum.) A small business owner would need to bring in more than that every month in sales to have a positive return on investment. However, as we all know, that first year of business is always going to be a loss year. That is why I tell my clients that you must stick it out for at least 6 months at a minimum to allow for the social media algorithms to learn how people are engaging with your ads.I’m just calling it like I see it based on my work with thousands of small business owners in real life over the past ten years. Advertising on social media is not a one month and done experience. You have to stick with it for it to work and to make adjustments along the way. This isn’t Google search information it’s just my fact based on my actual work experience.

Now, organic reach on social media has been hard to come by since these platforms are a business with the goal of maximizing profit. With the focus on maximizing profit comes the focus on limiting organic reach to force small businesses into a pay-to-play model. That means you have to pay to advertise on these platforms. Advertising on these platforms and Google is always expensive in the first month or two as their systems are learning which ads are the best performing. Cost per click will always be higher during this time with less conversions. Over time, cost per click will begin to decrease as conversions begin to increase.

There is a way around it! How can your small business use social media to become more efficient in areas like sales and marketing and customer service? Focus on social media being a cocktail party! What do you do when you go to a cocktail party? You strike up conversations! Two ways to accomplish this is to bring the traditional water cooler conversations online to your company page, and second to use live video that is becoming increasingly popular on all of the platforms.

The first thing to do is to have 95% of your posts strike up conversations. Yes, this does mean including political conversations! This is no different from standing around the water cooler in your office talking about either sports or politics. These water cooler conversations are now coming online as working in an office environment is becoming extinct. The goal of social media posts is to strike up conversations and encourage people to engage. When one person comments, it causes more people to comment. It causes more people to get into the conversation.

When dealing with water cooler conversations, whether online or offline, you have to deal with hateful rhetoric. You want to allow for dissent, but when it crosses to hateful rhetoric, you have the obligation to delete that comment and ban that user from your company page. That is the same as suspending or firing someone in a physical office environment.

The second thing to do is to utilize live video on the platforms that give you that ability. Live video has become a proven method for increasing followers on social media and engagement without paying to advertise. When planning to use live video, treat it as your very own weekly live TV show with a Q and A session built in during the same day and time every week. By doing so you are creating your own time slot in the platforms algorithm.

You can get started doing your own live videos with just a smartphone and a selfie stick tri-pod. As you get more popular with your own live videos, you will want to pump more money into it by purchasing software such as vMix (for Windows) or eCamm (for Mac’s).

Now, when doing these live videos, don’t be salesy! Salesy is a term used in the business world for the salesperson who sells aggressively and superficially. The high-pressure “salesy” approach often makes the prospect uncomfortable and unresponsive. On social media, the goal is to educate and entertain! Leave any type of selling to your website. You can post a link to your website as a pinned comment for those that are interested in clicking over to learn more about you.

This is what it means when you hear people say that social media has broken down barriers. You no longer have to pitch a major media company and audition to do your own show. Social media, thanks to the ever-evolving technology over the years, has created an environment where anyone can become publisher and trusted source of information. Social media has enabled anyone to become a “celebrity” without going through “Hollywood.”

If you are a small business owner who needs help with their social media marketing, contact me at 407 Media Group today.