Social Media For Small Business: Marketing Strategies for Business Owners

By Franziska Iseli

Discover how social media can transform your business and help you attract more customers 

Social Media For Small Business delivers a step-by-step guide to unlocking the potential of social media to grow your business. Award-winning author and entrepreneur Franziska Iseli walks you through how to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest to market your small-to medium-sized business. The book provides you with: 

• Effective marketing strategies to get more out of your social media efforts. 
• Systems to bring structure into your entire marketing approach. 
• Tools to make your brand irresistible across your customer touchpoints.  
• Case studies to highlight the application of the book’s principles to the real-world 
• Practical strategies you can put in place immediately to see a rapid return on investment 

Perfect for busy business owners, business managers and marketing teams wanting to find new and effective marketing tools to attract more customers, Social Media For Small Business also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone who has difficulty with or wants to learn more about how social media can have a positive impact on their business and brand. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Mar 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9780730390305

Book preview

SOCIAL MEDIA

MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS

MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS OWNERS

FRANZISKA ISELI

Logo: Wiley

First published in 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064

Office also in Melbourne

Typeset in Kepler Std 10.5/15

© John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 2021

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN: 978‐0‐730‐39032‐9

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover design by The Business Hood

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

About the author

Franziska Iseli is a maverick entrepreneur, award‐winning marketing and brand strategist, mad adventurer, author, and the co‐founder of Basic Bananas, The Business Hood, Oceanlovers, and Moments of Humanity.

Franziska's mission is to make a positive impact through entrepreneurship.

Franziska is a board member at the global Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), where she advises on communication, marketing and branding. She also launched an impact initiative called EOcean to inspire entrepreneurs to be more sustainable. Franziska also sits on the judging panel for Singularity University and has run think tanks at the United Nations to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals through entrepreneurship.

She is the co‐author of two bestselling books—Bananas about Marketing and Perception—and author of The Courage Map (which includes a foreword by Sir Richard Branson).

Franziska is regularly featured across the media, including Inc. magazine, Forbes, Business Insider, Virgin Inflight Entertainment, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, SmartCompany, Dynamic Business magazine, BRW, 2UE and Channel 9.

A Swiss‐born Australian (or Swaussie) with a sharp‐witted humour and the ability to speak five languages, she's known to make up words, which keeps everyone amused.

The key to Franziska's success is her down‐to‐earth attitude, infectious energy, integrity and courage to take the lead. She is an idea generation machine and her brain seems to work at double speed.

In her spare time Franziska loves going on adventures, spending time in the ocean, playing music with her band Salty Lips, learning new things and spending time with family and friends.

On one of her recent adventures she rode her motorbike from Switzerland to Kazakhstan along the Silk Road (12 000 kilometres), which made for interesting tales.

Connect with Franziska on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/franziskaiseliofficial

Instagram: @franziskaiseli

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/franziskaiseli/

YouTube: www.youtube.com/franziskaiseli

Dedication

I'd love to dedicate this book to the brilliant, brave and bold business owners in the world: you!

It takes courage, determination and focus to run a business and stay the course while gracefully holding on to the ‘sometimes’ rollercoaster ride. Running your own business can be an incredibly challenging, yet infinitely fulfilling, impactful and rewarding journey.

Entrepreneurship is one of the best ways to make a positive impact in the world. And social media can not only help you amplify your message, but also scale your business exponentially and create positive ripple effects all around you.

A special shout out to the businesses in our marketing mentoring programs at Basic Bananas. Thank you for letting me share your practical examples with my readers. Your generosity inspires, motivates and elevates fellow business owners.

Preface

The purpose of Social Media for Small Business is to support you in unlocking the potential of social media to grow your business. The book is jam‐packed with marketing and social media strategies, tactics and hot tips that I've collected over more than a decade of running successful businesses, including Basic Bananas, a global marketing mentoring organisation.

My aim is for you to understand how to leverage and maximise your social media efforts for your business. To this end, I give you the best strategies and hacks to help you select the right networks, publish content to grow your audience and move people from being ‘followers’ to becoming loyal customers.

Who is this book for?

Social Media for Small Business is for business owners, their team members and marketers who want to take their social media game to the next level.

It's for you if:

you want to have a social media strategy and plan in place to grow your audience and attract more customers

you know you have a great business, product or service and want to get noticed by more people

you want to amplify your message and increase your impact.

The strategies and lessons I share in this book work across all industries. It doesn't matter whether you run a products‐ or services‐based business or whether you are business to customer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) because ultimately it's all person to person: there's always a person behind the screen interacting with you.

This is one of the most important, yet most neglected lessons for business owners: when you create any type of communication, always remember that you are talking to a person, not a business, regardless of whether you are in the B2C or B2B space. It's really important to keep in mind that there's a human at the other end of your communication.

Who is this book not for?

It's not for anyone looking for a quick fix, hyped‐up advice or a magic pill. It's also not for anyone who doesn't care about their products or services and doesn't want to add value. No marketing strategy will make a business wildly successful if the products or services are below average.

How to use this book

It's almost impossible to implement everything I share in the book. So instead of feeling overwhelmed or adding too much to your already very long to‐do list, prioritise and focus on implementing the parts that are going to bring you the biggest returns in your business right now.

The book has three parts:

In part I you'll discover how social media can be one of the most powerful marketing strategies for growing your business because it is exponential and has the ability to tap into social proof. I also introduce you to my MAVERICK marketing principles, which are foundational to your approach and will help you to get the most out of your efforts.

Part II is all about strategy—because it's your strategy that will set you apart. One of my favourite things in life is to find the most effective and efficient ways to do things. Part II will teach you the most effective and efficient ways to use social media for your business without all the fluff. It's in this part that I introduce my brand strategy, The Brand Alchemy Method™.

In part III I walk you through several social media networks and how you can use them to market your small‐ to medium‐sized business. For your business to be successful using social media, you don't need to use every social network out there. Focus on the ones that are most relevant for your business. I only ever teach what I and my social media team have tested and proven and I use the six networks I share with you in this book: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.

New networks emerge all the time and some of them will catch on like wildfire (one example is TikTok). Social media channels take time to be of benefit to businesses as they often start as a ‘social’ tool before turning into a powerful business tool and ads platform.

If any of the networks discussed in part III don't apply to you or your business, please feel free to skip that chapter entirely. Or come back to it when you feel like learning more about that network.

It's highly recommended that you don't skip parts I and II as this information is crucial for getting the most out of your efforts. As a business owner you must always understand and keep an eye on your strategy, even if you choose to outsource the implementation of it. I'm a big believer in playing by your strengths and outsourcing your weaknesses.

My promise to you

There's one thing I promise you: this book is written in a way that's straight to the point, relevant, practical, actionable and applicable to your business because I want you to get results by implementing what you learn.

Pro tips and activities are dotted throughout the book to help you achieve these results. I'd love for you to feel motivated and inspired to create excellent social media content for others to consume! The world needs more useful, valuable, insightful, enlightening content!

Most business owners have a very scattered approach to marketing, which makes it really challenging to get a positive return. Many don't even know what's working and what's not, often wasting money on stuff that doesn't work.

I'd like you to walk away with a clear strategy and action plan in place, focusing on the most important key elements that will have the most impact.

And I've got more great news for you; you don't need to implement all of the social media tactics yourself. Once you've got your strategy sorted, you may have one of your team members, a friend, intern or mother‐in‐law help you implement it.

Please feel free to share this book with anyone you'd like to invite to help you with the implementation of your social media strategy. Also share it with any fellow business owners you are cheering on!

Bonus resources and website

The social media world is changing quickly, so in order to help you stay up to date, I've created a whole bunch of resources to support you on this journey. You can find them at basicbananas.com/socialmedia. Whenever I refer you to ‘my website’ in the book, head over to this site.

Over more than a decade of running Basic Bananas, I've found that the best way to mentor businesses and teach marketing strategies is through frameworks because you can apply them to any type of business and situation. So throughout this book—and on the website—you'll find useful templates and frameworks you can use over and over again.

On the website you'll also find videos explaining some of the details outlined in this book, including behind the scenes and screen‐share videos. We'll keep this site updated, so make sure to check back when you feel like a refresher.

Visit basicbananas.com/socialmedia and create your own members’ login to get access to these resources. This is free for readers of the book. Just use the password: socialmedia.

If you'd like to connect with me personally, or with my team at Basic Bananas, you can find me on most social networks under Franziska Iseli @franziskaiseli and my team at @basicbananas.

Franziska Iseli

PART I

The power of social media

It's highly likely that a majority of your customers use social media channels to connect, communicate and shop, which makes social media a very powerful tool for business owners. The purpose of these platforms is for you to connect with your customers, network with potential strategic partners, attract prospects, build relationships, collaborate with brands, create communities and share brilliant content to build authority, which leads to trust and increased sales.

Despite this, very few businesses use social media in the most effective way. Social media goes far beyond the pretty ‘snap’, sharing cat videos or showing off the latest yoga pose. If used right, it's one of the most powerful tools for growing your business exponentially.

CHAPTER 1

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?

Why should you even care about social media?

More than 60 per cent of the entire population own a smartphone. Almost half of the world's population uses social media. More than one‐quarter are online shoppers. And these numbers are accelerating fast.

The leverage principle: exponential vs linear

The good news is that there are countless different marketing strategies out there that can help you grow your business. Some of them have a more linear growth effect; some are more exponential. Linear means the rate of growth is more constant. Exponential is rapid growth, increasing by multiples. Both are great.

Social media is one of the marketing tools that can have an exponential effect on your business's growth and become an incredibly effective and omnipotent tool.

The reason for social media's exponentiality is that it takes advantage of the leverage principle: if you publish great content on your social channels, your followers might share it with their friends and their friends might share it with their friends. You suddenly go from broadcasting to only your audience to your followers broadcasting your content to their followers, and so on. This creates an exponential effect on your exposure.

This is also why some smaller brands have been able to scale exponentially and compete against big brand names on a tiny budget. It's not the big budgets that slam small ones anymore. The power is in the hands of the people.

Social proof

Social media also taps into the power of social proof, a term first coined by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The psychology of persuasion. Social proof describes the psychological and social phenomenon of people copying the actions of others. If a business gets a lot of positive attention on social media, others will follow and assume that this business must be great. You see this principle in action all the time. Imagine you walk past a row of restaurants. If you see one almost empty and one with most tables busy, which one will you choose? Most likely the seemingly ‘popular’ one. That's the law of social proof in action.

Social proof describes the psychological and social phenomenon of people copying the actions of others.

Social proof is inherent on social media and all social media tools have in‐built ways to tap into this principle by way of shares, likes, comments, reviews, recommendations, and so on. If you invest in adding value, being helpful and publishing great content, your audience will do the work for you.

The power of small

The good news is that you don't need a huge audience for social media to be effective. A small, yet loyal following is way more powerful than a large, disengaged one. If you have a few loyal sneezers—aka people who love your business, cheer you on and tell everyone about you—you will increase your brand awareness and ultimately attract significantly more customers.

The challenge

Unfortunately, social media is not all rainbows and unicorns and also comes with a few challenges—including a distorted portrayal of ‘real life’, which leads to unrealistic expectations. That's why it's so important for us to be real and share both the struggles and the triumphs. People connect with authenticity more than they do with fakery.

When it comes to social media for business, there are also a lot of subpar and abandoned social media accounts out there, so rather than joining the noise, make sure your social channels are representing you and your business honestly and you will attract a loyal following.

If you invest in adding value, being helpful and publishing great content, your audience will do the work for you.

Another big challenge businesses have when it comes to using social media is the lack of a strategy. They just randomly post content without a plan, which makes their approach very scattered and unorganised. After a few months of non‐results, many give up with a big sigh, saying that ‘social media doesn't work for my business’. It's