If you’re a small business, you can’t afford not to be on social media. A few years back, sure, maybe it wasn’t crucial, but in 2017, it’s an absolute necessity.

It is downright expected that your business will have a social media presence, for everything from daily specials to hours of operation and customer reviews. Read on, and see if your small business can benefit from our favorite social media tips for small businesses just like yours.

Having a Profile Isn’t Enough

Not having a social media profile looks a little weird. It looks outdated, and sends the impression that your business isn’t playing the same game as the rest of us. But worse than an absent profile is a vacant one — those look downright shady. Make sure your profile is an active social media presence.

Start Strong, Right Out of the Gate

When you create a new social media profile, make sure you front-load it with a ton of content. Make it look like you’ve been publishing for years. That helps you avoid that uncomfortable tumbleweed sensation, which comes from an underwhelming or vacant profile.

Don’t Set Unreachable Expectations

Not every post will gain traction, and not every reader will like or leave a comment. Your profile is a way to reach out – don’t ever go silent.

Develop Appropriate Content

You want to write for your ideal audience. Develop a Persona first, to help narrow down your niche, and then let your content reach for that particular character.

Be Genuine

Once you’re writing with a voice, and trying to reach a particular audience, don’t get wishy-washy about it. Bland content gets ignored. Social media is a very loud place, and indistinct voices get lost pretty easily. Don’t worry too much about alienating people you’re not writing for, just be genuine in your efforts to reach the right crowd.

Go Where the People Are

While we’re on the subject of reaching a certain audience, make sure your profiles are on the right sites. If your crowd uses Pinterest, Pin. If your audience prefers Snapchat, Snap. If your clients are on The Dots, then get ready to spell colour with a U.

Lightning Round

-Multi-Media – Images and videos tend to get more traction on social media than other posts.

-Publish quality and entertaining content – Content is queen! Don’t worry about plugging promotional material; just publish great stuff!

-Foreschedule like a boss – If you’ve got a few hours free, advance-post a dozen things to trickle out over the next few days. It’s a great way to stay ahead.

-Use a social media planning calendar – Plan your content out in advance, or hire a social media digital marketing service to take care of the details for you.

-Engagement is a two-way street – When you get comments, questions, likes, subscribers, and so on, make sure you reply and acknowledge the activity. Even a simple thank-you post goes a long way. Don’t ever miss a chance to connect.

-Optimize content for sharing from other places – When you publish on your own site, make sure you have share buttons, and that your images are the right size for social media (600×315) etc.

-Look past the vanity numbers – Likes and shares are great, but without context they don’t really mean anything. Make sure you can usefully interpret your data.

-Test, track, measure, analyze! – Always test a new approach, always track your progress, always measure your results, and always analyze your data to find out how you can continue to improve!

This guest blog post is from Andrew McLoughlin of advised company Colibri Digital Marketing.