Social media strategy for small business owners

In partnership with the UK Domain, we present this guide to social media strategy to help your small business grow

Entrepreneurs are generally aware of the positive effect that social media can have on their business, but sometimes lack a clear strategy to guide their output.

In this article, we’re going to look at social media strategies in a bit more detail, covering what one is, why you need one and how to react and adjust your strategy depending on changes in your business.

Before we do so, and before you start creating your own social media plan, let’s establish how we – and your potential customers – use these platforms.

Statista cites that there are 45 million active social media users (67pc of the UK population) and 39 million active social media users on mobile (58pc of the population).

In 2019, Facebook is still the most widely used social platform in the UK. Here are some key figures:

• Over three quarters (78pc) of all internet users in the UK use Facebook (Avocado Social)
• Meanwhile, there are 24m Instagram users in the UK, with the overwhelming majority (80pc) of users following a business or brand (Avocado Social)
• 7m users are on Twitter (Statista)
• Engagement on LinkedIn is at record high, with more than 610m professionals now interacting within the platform (Avocado Social)

Research from Flint also shows that  79pc of UK adults (18+) used YouTube in 2018.

What is a social media strategy?

With statistics like the above, it’s no surprise that social media can help small businesses grow online. But to really get the most out of the channel, you need a social strategy. Why? We’ll answer that below.

A social media strategy is a plan of how you’re going to handle your output over a set period of time – it could be a week, a month, a year or another suitable measure.

Read more: https://smallbusiness.co.uk/a-guide-to-social-media-strategy-for-small-business-owners-2549667/