Roadmap to Digital Success

3: Social Media

The main goal of local social media marketing is to stay top-of-mind to clients in the area. Clients may not need your services when you are posting, but when the need arises, you’ll be at the top of the list for potential businesses to work with. Like, comment, and post content to your social media channels as often as possible to keep in touch with past and potential clients. When you like and comment on another business or past customer that you follow, you’ll show them that you are interested in what they are posting. Just like in a personal social media page, being engaged in your community helps you show up more often when you do post. There’s no surprise that when scrolling through my feed, Matt Keuhlhorn’s (of https://koolergaragedoors.com/) posts show up on the day that he posts and sometimes come around again 2 and 3 days later. He has a strong social media presence with liking, commenting, and posting, so when he does post, it can reach a wider audience.

Facebook has made it no secret that they throttle how many posts you see on your page. It’s measured at about 10% of what your friends, that you follow, are actually posting. If you make a post and it’s served to 10 people and nobody interacts with it, only 10 people out of your 300 follows will even see it show up. If 1 person out of the first 10 like or comment, then it goes to another 10 and so on. This makes it even more important to make content that people can and will interact with. Or, you can do what Facebook would like you to do and pay for your ads to be boosted.

Creating Content That Gets Interaction

You post something cool and a follower throws you a “like”. This works well in the arts and photography sector where you are creating “cool” things that people can like and comment on. This also works well with finished million-dollar homes, high-end garage doors, cool car wraps, and creative design. What do you do if you are selling a “boring” service? No offense to dentists here, but we’re not going to get stunning pictures of Crested Butte from inside the office. Some ideas are to focus on the end results. In the case of a dentist, you could post smiling pictures of happy customers with clean, white teeth after visiting or removing braces. If you’re doing business valuations, showing graphs may not be likeable (or legal) content to post, but the end result of employees getting a proper stock share of the business after a valuation may be a great post that people would like.

Another tip for interaction is to create some Q and A. Reach out to followers to ask them what other services in your niche they would be interested in having available to them or what services you can improve upon. Some of the answers may not be what you want to hear, but use that to focus your offerings better. Listen to feedback when asking past clients and followers their opinions. Treat it like you would a friend group.

If you are feeling “writer’s block” for content creation, take a look at what others are posting that are getting good interaction rates. They may not be targeted to your audience, but it may give some ideas. Look at competitors that are in your same vertical, but in a larger city. Follow some Instagram marketing gurus and start generating some ideas.

Be consistent in the same way that you would be with a friend group. Show up, interact, and post your own content.

How to use Hashtags

Pinterest was popular for a time by creating “pin boards”. It was about putting together ideas for shopping, home design, and wedding planning into one location. From there, people could make decisions from what they were viewing in front of them. Hashtags work in the same way that “pin boards” did, but anyone can post into them. A hashtag is created for the purpose of organizing a particular topic. If I’m looking to redecorate my house, then I’ll start to follow home design hashtags. This a great opportunity to get in front of high-value potential customers that are seeking to make their next purchase.

Use local hashtags like #gunnisoncolorado to get in front of locals that want to stay up to date on town happenings as well as people looking to visit the town.

Following and commenting in hashtag groups is an important function of ranking your own posts. If you are more active in a community with comments that people find helpful, then when you post, your posts are more likely to be seen by more of the followers in that hashtag group. Again, we need to think about the 10% that Facebook employs with their algorithm. The more people who like and comment in the beginning, the more people will end up seeing it.

Hashtags in Tourism Towns

Let’s take a journey of someone from Denver planning their next mountain town getaway. The front range is booming with people and they love to get up into the mountains to escape their city life. If I’m planning a trip, i’m going to start to follow hashtags like #mountainvacation. I then may see Visitgcb posting some beautiful photos of the mountains a quite little town like Crested Butte and start following those hashtags too. I’ll also be following other towns I’d like to visit like Aspen or Breckenridge. What changes my decision from Aspen to Crested Butte? A restaurant, a little shop, top-rated mountain biking, or extreme skiing? The tourism association is responsible for this factor, but we can help amplify their voice by creating more posts that draw the eye to the area. Events like the wildflower festival, the Coburn 5K, the Growler, Alley Loop, and Live Music can really draw a crowd. As a small business that relies on tourism, you can get into these same hashtags so when a visitor does get to Gunnison or CB, you’ll have already shown up on their feed. In the case of Camp 4 Coffee, they could post beautiful roasts with mountain views. That way, when a visitor shows up they’ll recognize the location immediately and be more partial to stopping there over competitors.

Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube

Each social media giant is fighting for the attention of users. They promote content creators in order to get their users to be more engaged. What platform is best for your business? Depending on the demographics of your target client, one platform may be more effective than others. Facebook is more popular in the 40+, Instagram in the 30+, Tiktok in the 20+, and YouTube for information. Each platform has discovered that they can keep the attention of their audience with short video format. Instagram has Reels (also shared on Facebook), TikTok is short content, and YouTube now has Shorts. These giants predict that this is the way that users will consume content the best today and into the future. It’s important for your small business to stay up on these trends. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all have the option to post in a geographic location making it easier to show up in front of users in your area. Take advantage of the “lack of inventory” in short-form content and start creating some of your own.

Mix up the content that you post on platforms to get in front of more users. Do a post one day, a story another, and a short video the next.

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