5 Social Media Strategies for Small Businesses

by Casey Morris

These five social media strategies help small businesses save time, make more engaging content, and reach new audiences:

1. Leverage User-Generated Content
2. Showcase Company Culture
3. Get Your Staff Involved
4. Try Reels/YouTube Shorts
5. Remember Quality Over Quantity

How Small Businesses Benefit from Social Media

“I know I have to do it, but…”

We hear this refrain from many business owners, and we understand the feeling. New platforms, trends, and ever-changing algorithms can make social media marketing a challenge. When you’re running a business at the same time, how do you keep up?

While social media can be frustrating, we promise that it’s worth the effort. Organic content can get your brand in front of new eyes and keep you top of mind with your current audience, without having to pay for ad placements. It can also be a networking opportunity for local businesses, engaging with each other’s accounts to show support.

A key benefit of social media content is how it supports your other marketing efforts. With our clients, we often see website traffic go up or digital ads get more clicks after an organic post performs well. Visibility in multiple places strengthens your overall marketing by maintaining awareness with your audience across different channels.

Refresh Your Social Media Content with These 5 Strategies

If you feel like you’re only posting for the sake of posting, and your social media content isn’t making an impact on your following or revenue, a new strategy might be all you need.

Start by identifying a specific goal for how you want your social media marketing to support your business. This could be increasing sales, generating leads, or raising awareness of your company and what you offer. Then, make sure the content you’re creating aligns with your goal.

Based on your goal, try starting with one of these five strategies:

1. Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content is made by a brand’s customers or by content creators, rather than by the brand itself. This can include:

• Photos
• Videos
• Reviews
• Blogs or shorter text posts

This style of content helps show potential new buyers how your brand solves their problems. Since it originates from an external source, it can make your business look more credible. You can also reach more people through reposts or collaborations. When you share a post from the creator’s account and vice versa, you both get more visibility from each other’s audiences.

UGC is usually associated with products or hospitality brands, but it also works well for service-based businesses. This content could look like:

• Before and After posts
• A “Day in the Life” video that shows how your brand impacts their daily routine
• Photos at an event your business hosts
• Testimonials (written or video)

UGC can also spark more social media engagement on your accounts. If creators see their posts on your account, they will be encouraged to make more, while other users may be inspired to create their own content. By sharing UGC, you’re showing a genuine interest in how your audience experiences your brand, which builds trust and loyalty over time.

You may already have relevant UGC you can share. Check your social media accounts for posts you were tagged or mentioned in, and ask the creator if you can repost with credit to them. If you have positive Google reviews or website testimonials, put the text in a branded graphic. For more, you can reach out to past customers individually or ask your social media following to share their experience with your offerings.

2. Showcase Company Culture

Your social media content can go beyond showcasing your brand to highlight your employees, office, and company culture.

Your audience may be less interested in following your accounts if your content is all business and every post feels like a sales pitch. Sharing the people behind your company helps your brand feel more human. At KDD Marketing, our clients’ top-performing posts almost always include photos or videos of their teams.

If you have a strong local presence, company culture posts can also boost your brand awareness. Featuring your employees on social media helps other business owners recognize your team at networking events or out in the community. Repeatedly seeing your team helps your local audience remember who you are and what you do.

Some easy ways to start sharing your company culture include:

• Introduce each team member with their headshot, a short bio, and a memorable fun fact or two.
• Take photos or videos at your holiday party, conferences you attend, events you host, or even a casual team lunch.
• Celebrate employee birthdays and internal promotions on social media. This is a great opportunity to highlight the strengths of your team members and demonstrate your company values.

3. Get Your Staff Involved

Like the company culture social media strategy, content featuring team members will help your audience connect with your brand. A Sprout Social study found that 40% of consumers are discovering a product or service from an employee-made post at least once per month.

If you want to incorporate fresh content into your social media strategy, try asking your employees. Each member of your team will see different trends and content topics in their personal feeds, so you’ll have diverse sources of inspiration. Various perspectives and styles of content can help your accounts reach new audiences, but make sure the trends and topics align with your brand.

As a small business owner, you have a lot on your plate. When your employees can help you brainstorm ideas for social media and create content themselves, you’ll have more time to focus on other aspects of your operations. Because of their close understanding of your business and your customers, your staff often make great brand ambassadors.

To get started with this strategy, send out a request to your team to share their social media ideas. Do some quick research on their suggestions to make sure they’re appropriate for your brand, then make a plan to create the content.

4. Try Reels/YouTube Shorts

If your primary social media goal is more visibility, focus on short-form video. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and even LinkedIn have dedicated vertical video tabs on their mobile apps.

If you already have Facebook and Instagram accounts, Reels are an easy place to start. YouTube Shorts are also especially helpful for small businesses, as you can get high views without having a lot of subscribers, and the built-in search engine helps your content get in front of interested users.

If you feel intimidated about speaking on camera or learning editing software, know that for short-form video, clear and useful content is all you need. You’ll often see the simplest videos perform the best, where someone shares their point of view directly with the camera.

The structure of your Reels and YouTube Shorts can help keep viewers watching:

• Start with a strong hook in the first three seconds to keep people watching. This could be an on-screen headline, an interesting visual, or both.
  • On most social media platforms, video views are counted when someone watches for at least three seconds.
• Keep adding value throughout the video so viewers stay engaged. Give them a reason to watch all the way until the end.
  • A common way to think about social media content is “educate, entertain, inspire” – each video should do at least one of the three.
• At the end of the video or in your caption, include a brief call to action for the next step you want the viewer to take: leave a comment, follow your account, go to the link in your bio, etc.
• Keep the caption short but descriptive enough that the algorithm understands what your video is about, so it reaches people interested in that topic.
• Always include legible on-screen captions: not only does this make your video accessible, but many users watch Reels and Shorts on mute.

You can usually share the same video on multiple social media platforms to save some time. The user interfaces of these apps will vary, so make sure your on-screen captions are not covered up by a button.

5. Remember Quality over Quantity

Posting more often on social media can boost both account growth and the performance of each piece of content. But for small businesses, there is a clear point of diminishing returns, where the increased growth is negligible compared to the investment of time required.

Treating your social media accounts like you’re a full-time influencer will likely burn you out. Choosing a consistent schedule and sticking to it will give you a better return on investment. Even posting once a week will get you much further than sharing daily for a week, then going dark for a month. Keep in mind that certain types of content will take longer to make than others when you’re thinking about your calendar.

Choose a couple of platforms where your target audience already spends their time and focus your attention there. When you’re not spreading yourself thin creating a high volume of posts, you’ll have more time to research your community’s interests and create relevant content. Focusing on quality over quantity will also give you more time to follow and comment on other accounts, which can also help increase your visibility on social media.

Start With One Strategy, and Give It Time to Show Results

When you’re updating your social media strategy, it’s tempting to try many things at once. But in the spirit of quality over quantity, we recommend starting with one strategy at a time so you can give it your fullest attention.

As you work on your strategy, it can take time for the new content to find the right audience, so don’t give up if you don’t see any changes in the first couple of months. Check your social media analytics, look for what your top-performing posts have in common, create more of what’s working well, and repeat. Give your new social media strategy at least three months before pivoting…unless you find you really don’t like making the content. The best strategy for your small business is one that you enjoy enough to maintain long-term.

Want an expert’s eyes on your social media? Our Mini Marketing Plan includes a custom audit of your current strategy and recommendations tailored to your business.

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