You know what it’s like to wear more than one hat if you’re on a small marketing team, the only marketer at your company, or in charge of everything in your business. When you have a lot of things to do to keep your small business going, social media marketing can seem like a non-essential tactic that is easy to forget about.

People are using their phones more and more, and a lot of that time is spent on social media apps. We also know that people who use social media often talk to or do business with companies they are interested in. Social media is free, and your customers and potential customers are already there, waiting to hear from you.

For small businesses that focus on the community and individual customers, this makes social media a powerful way to connect directly with an audience to build brand awareness and brand loyalty. Even better, social media is also a good way to find new customers. You can make the content and resources that will give your prospects and customers more value while also making them more loyal to your brand. When users click on your content or offer, they are either actively looking for it or agreeing to follow your business to get updates. People who have already signed up are more likely to buy than random people who see an ad or offer that has nothing to do with what they need.

Social media is a free and easy way for businesses to connect directly with people who are interested in their brand. It’s also fun (come on, we have gifs!). Even though it’s free, easy, and fun, you can’t just log in and start posting. Before you do that, you need to make a plan for marketing on social media.

Back when there were only a few social media options and each platform hadn’t yet been defined by its own unique value, businesses could just pop in and post whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. There weren’t many businesses on social media, and it was even harder for businesses to connect with their target audience.

Inbound marketing strategies now include social media as an important part. One thing is to make good content and rank well for it on the SERP. Another is to share that content with the right people and get those who are interested in your brand, product, or service to come back to your site.

And the platform also affects how you make sure you’re sharing the right social media content with the right people. Each of the most popular social media sites now has its own way that people use it. In turn, businesses have started to connect with their audiences in slightly different ways on each platform.

In this guide, I’ll go over each platform and tell you what kind of content you should share, how often you should share, and what the best practices are for each one.

Marketing on Facebook for small businesses

Facebook is one of the first social networking sites. It has a huge number of users: 1 billion daily and more than 2 billion monthly. If your customer base is on any social media site, it’s probably Facebook. Plus, Facebook makes it easy to create target groups for paid ads based on the people who interact with your free posts.

LinkedIn marketing for small business

LinkedIn is a place where business people can connect with each other and network online. If someone is following your company on LinkedIn, they are probably interested in the business-related information and insights you can give them.

LinkedIn is another great place to share videos. If you can make a video that is focused on a product or an idea, your engagement rates will go up.

Twitter Marketing for Small Businesses

Twitter is definitely the most conversational of all social media sites. It is a huge network of people and brands talking to each other very quickly. Every day, more than 500 million tweets are sent, and more than 320 million people use the platform every month. It is one of the best places to get news on social media, and people from all over the world use it.

Instagram marketing for small business

Instagram is the newest social media platform, but it has the third most users (1 billion!) and the third most active users (500 million!). It is the most visual of all the social media sites. It has a few different ways to post, such as short stories and permanent posts. With these options, you have the freedom to shape your Instagram presence to fit your business goals and the needs of your audience.

Since Instagram is connected to Facebook, paid ads from your business Instagram account can be made right on Facebook and don’t need to be set up on a separate platform.

YouTube Marketing for Small Businesses

Making videos for YouTube can give your brand a lot more credibility and get a lot of people involved. Optimizing your videos for search is a big part of making sure that people who are looking for your content can find them. Also, since Google owns the platform, you can build your paid campaigns right in the Google Ads interface and use the largest search network to help with targeting.

It’s important for marketers to market on social media platforms. More people can come to a business if more people use social media. A marketer can use many different social media platforms. A marketer has to figure out which platform will best serve its needs.