Business owners start LLC for all sorts of reasons. Maybe it’s a particular passion for a product, industry, service, or niche. Maybe it’s an amazing business idea that they’re just dying to get off the ground. Maybe it’s an opportunity to connect with an underserved consumer demographic.
Whatever the case, LLC owners naturally want their business to gain some visibility. They want their brand identity to be broadcast, their products and services promoted to target buyers. And one of the best ways to make that happen is through social media marketing.
Indeed, when starting an LLC in Florida or elsewhere, business owners should take a strategic approach to social media, understanding its power to generate engagement and enhance business growth. But with so many social platforms to choose from, so many trends to chase, and so many opportunities to spend ad dollars, what’s the best way for an LLC to unlock social media’s true potential?
Why Use Social Media Marketing?
First and foremost, it’s important for LLC owners to understand what makes social media marketing a non-negotiable. Consider just a few simple facts. Right now there are well over 4.2 billion active social media members, spending on average two-and-a-half hours engaged with social media content each day. In terms of sheer reach, social media’s share of the attention economy is impossible to downplay.
And yet, the value of social media marketing isn’t that it allows you to reach anyone and everyone. After all, most LLCs have narrower, often geographically specific scopes. As such, the real benefit to social media marketing may be in the targeting options available, allowing LLC owners to carefully determine the exact audience they wish to reach with their messaging, ensuring each ad dollar is allocated with precision and utter cost-effectiveness.
Social Media Marketing for LLCS: Where to Start?
Of course, these benefits are all contingent on clear, strategic execution. The average LLC owner has minimal experience in marketing, but there are a few basic guidelines that can turn any small business owner into a competent social media practitioner.
One place to start is a review of the basic pillars of social media marketing. Success on the socials will require each of these five elements to be in place:
1) Strategy
Your social media strategy identifies your audience, articulates your goals, and provides some platform-specific steps for achieving those goals. In effect, it’s the roadmap for all the content you create, and all the posts you make.
2) Publishing
Publishing refers to the frequency with which you actually get information out in front of your audience. Your publishing frequency may vary by platform, and should always be aligned with your overall strategy.
3) Community management
Effective social media marketing is a two-way street. It’s not enough to publish information about your brand. You’ll also need to engage in community management, responding to questions or concerns that are raised by your followers.
4) Advertising
Organic posts to Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms can all be helpful for cultivating your audience. The reality, though, is that the social algorithms make it almost impossible to grow that audience unless you invest in some paid ads. Balancing organic and paid posts is a hallmark of any good social media marketing strategy.
5) Data
Don’t fall into the trap of posting and then immediately moving on. Instead, take time to gauge the effect and reach of each post, using analytics to determine what kind of progress you’re making toward your social media goals (and, what kinds of changes or revisions you need to make to your strategy).
Developing a Social Media Marketing Strategy for Your LLC
For LLC owners who understand these basic tenets, the next step is to actually start hammering out a strategy. That may seem daunting, but consider a few steps that might illuminate the process.
Determine Your Target Audience
Who are the typical customers for your LLC? What are their values, their pain points, and their goals? You can probably get a good sense of this from your historic customer data, but polls and surveys can also be invaluable tools. Sketching out rough buyer personas will not only help you tailor your messaging, but also determine which social platforms are most worthy of your resources.
Set Measurable Goals
It’s all too common to hear business owners declare that their ultimate social media marketing goal is to boost sales, or increase brand visibility, without providing a quantifiable set of metrics. Goals are far more effective when they are specific and when they are measurable. For example, you may determine that you want to see a 25 percent increase in traffic to your landing pages, or a 10 percent increase in annual sales. These are good, concrete goals around which you can coalesce your social media strategy.
Establish Your Budget
Starting a Facebook page is free, and it doesn’t cost you anything to post to Instagram. So why exactly do you need a budget? Well, remember the point about combining organic and paid social media activity. The good news is that social media marketing is highly scalable, which means you can start with a modest budget until you learn the ropes. As your campaign starts bearing fruit, increase your budget in the areas that have proven most consequential.
Keep Tabs on the Competition
Wondering what kinds of content are most effective for your LLC’s audience, or with what frequency you should be posting? One of the best ways to wrap your head around an industry- or niche-appropriate strategy is by monitoring your competition. Ongoing research will help you to carve out your own space in the industry, as you gradually zero in on the kinds of content that might help you set your brand apart.
Choose Your Platforms
It’s tempting to try to be everywhere at once, but doing so likely means spreading yourself too thin. Most smaller LLCs don’t have the resources, nor the need, to be active on every single platform, so instead it’s best to choose a few strategic positions where you’ll have the best chances of connecting with your audience. Those buyer personas you created can be invaluable here. Also make sure you keep tabs on your data and analytics to ensure you’ve made the right choices.
Define Your Brand
What does your LLC stand for? What’s your elevator pitch? What sets you apart from the competition? What problems do you solve, and what value do you bring to your customers’ lives? These are all critical questions to ask as you develop a branding guide, clarifying not only the types of topics your content will cover but the overall voice and tone of your LLC.
Post & Measure
Your posting frequency will depend on a number of factors, including audience, budget, and brand identity. The most important things are to be consistent, and to always review analytics to make sure your posts are moving the needle in the right direction.
Build an Audience for Your LLC
As you think about the long-term success of your business, it’s hard to avoid the ultimate necessity of a robust and strategic social media presence. Be intentional in how you develop your online identity, build your audience, and generate branded content.