Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
social media
The number of social media tools available can be daunting for SMEs. Photograph: Anatolii Babii / Alamy
The number of social media tools available can be daunting for SMEs. Photograph: Anatolii Babii / Alamy

How small businesses are making the most of social media to grow

This article is more than 9 years old
Master social media by concentrating your efforts on the right platform and managing the effectiveness of your campaign

For SMEs with limited resources, social media has been a blessing. Free social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube have been adopted enthusiastically by businesses for marketing, publicity, customer relations and market research purposes.

But the sheer number of tools available can be daunting. The challenge for a business is to strike a balance between focusing too narrowly on limited social networks and spreading itself too thinly by adopting too many.

Dani Booth of Jelf Small Business says his company focuses on the "big four" of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ and advises others to keep their efforts manageable and their accounts active.

"There are few things more embarrassing than a Twitter account that was set up and forgotten with only one lonely tweet present," he says. "Twitter is filled with people who have set up an account, said 'hello' and then abandoned said account because no one replied. Don't be that guy."

One business owner who has decided to focus their efforts is Maria Bateson. She set up a Facebook page for her silver charms business, which helped it to build up a loyal following. Now most of her customers come via Facebook. Bateson first turned to Facebook while living in Ukraine and found it was the best way of getting her designs visible to customers in the UK. Now based in London, she finds Facebook groups devoted to crafting are a good way of get her designs showcased.

Another Facebook fan is Alison Howell, the founder and managing director of the 10-year-old travel company Foottrails who came to social media relatively late. She made the decision to focus on Facebook and Twitter because of limited resources and has used both networks since 2012. "Social media does take time," says Howell, who takes on most of the responsibilities for social media herself. "I think it is best to focus on just a few networks and regularly update those."

Anna Lundberg, a digital marketing consultant at Crocus Communications, says Facebook and Twitter represent a good starting point. She advises considering a target market's age, gender and interests before widening social media efforts. "YouTube is useful if you have video content and Google+ for search engine optimisation reasons more than anything else," she adds.

But there are risks involved in focusing on only one or two platforms, as Maria Bateson discovered.

Bateson says she unwittingly received a temporary ban from Facebook Groups, adding that the episode made her explore alternatives to Facebook, including Twitter and putting paid ads on craft blogs. While the situation was quickly resolved by Facebook, it made her aware of how vulnerable social media content can be. "You hear horror stories of Facebook deleting pages," she adds.

While Facebook and Twitter are often the first social media channels that businesses turn to, Pinterest, an online tool for collecting and organising images, has become important for some, particularly designers. Wedding dress designer Lillian Mayro says she has found that Pinterest is her most powerful tool for capturing new customers and business.

"We use Pinterest to make the connection with the brides extra special and very personal to them," she says. "We see how much thought goes into women planning their weddings, from gathering inspiration from many sources or simply traditional old school tearing pages out of magazines.

"Pinterest just makes it so easy to collect inspiration and ideas in one place. It's also a really fun way to have a dialogue with the ladies."

Architects Feilden Fowles has found Pinterest useful for collaborating on projects with their clients. The business fills its Pinterest account with inspiring images from the built and natural world and creates "boards" linked to projects which they work on with the client. Edmund Feilden, a partner and architect at Feilden Fowles, says architectural drawings are not always the most engaging representation of designs. "By using images of spaces that actually exist you can draw people in," he says.

And this strategy has led them to win work. "Our last two residential clients have come to us after seeing our work on Pinterest," says Feilden. "We often get approached because architecture blogs have re-posted our content."

Nicholas Swift, the joint managing director at DirectBlinds.co.uk, uses social media to increase brand awareness and create social media opportunities. He says he key to a successful social media strategy is to understand your audience and choose the platform that suits them best.

Content is also an important consideration. Mayro says she spends five hours each month solely on content creation and holds a monthly meeting brainstorming content and deciding what to adopt.

Chloe Hall, who shares social media responsibilities with her two colleagues at Newcastle-based Jewellery Moments, says businesses should invest time in creating content to populate social networks, including strong images. She says the photo sharing network Instagram is Jewellery Moments' favoured network.

"What I have tried to do is tie products in with imagery," she says. "We watermark the image by adding some text like 'Mothers' Day coming up …' and mention the name of the business. It's a double whammy, we are presenting information in an aesthetically pleasing way."

Once networks have been established and content posted, most businesses try to monitor how much impact that content is having against their goals. For some businesses, a successfully implemented social media strategy is measured by engagement and media mentions or simply by the number of customers social media activities bring to the business. Swift says positive and negative sentiment is a key factor in measuring the effectiveness of DirectBlinds.co.uk's social media.

"We set ourselves high targets and use tools such as SimplyMeasured, TweetReach and Facebook Insights to evaluate our progress monthly," he says.

DirectBlinds.co.uk also found that Facebook posts that linked back to the website received minimal engagement. The social media team responded by creating content that gives the user the option to choose which image or product they prefer, using a multiple choice method.

"We have also started using low-value competitions that encourage 'likes' and comments to help boost our engagement and to increase our page reach," adds Swift. "Following this method, we have seen a steady increase in our Facebook fans."

Social media can offer many benefits to businesses, although the possibilities might seem mind-boggling to anyone unfamiliar with these tools. Digital marketing consultant Anna Lundberg advises small business that low-cost resources are available to help them to master social media. "Even if you don't get expert help there are lots of resources online and free conferences you can go to," she says. "There's a wealth of information available to you depending on what you want to achieve."

Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed