There’s nothing more liberating than running your own business from home. You’re in charge of everything, from the products and services you provide to the prices you charge and how much time you spend working on your projects. Many small business owners use social media to advertise their business, drive traffic to their website, promote offers and to build brand awareness. However, using social media to promote your home-based business sounds simple, but there are some pitfalls that you should avoid. Here we’ll explore the dos and don’ts of using social media for your home-based business.
DO: Share the content of others
Sharing content is a great way to keep your social media pages bursting with content and keeping your followers engaged. You could repost an Instagram story or share a post on Facebook. As long as the message is relevant and valuable to your business, the more clicks you’re likely to get and the more traffic to your website! Just always remember to credit the source of the content and you make it clear that the information or the photo isn’t yours. Re-sharing content will certainly keep your content levels high.
DO: Respond to your followers
Interacting with customers and followers online is super simple. However, when you’re running a business from home and struggling to find that work/life balance it’s not always easy to keep up with comments, shares and queries across multiple platforms. Set aside some time to respond to your followers and connect with them.
DO: Keep branding consistent
If you’re going to use certain graphics, logos, colour schemes and styles on your thumbnails or your branding, then you need to be consistent. Inconsistencies across your platforms not only look unprofessional but they’ll confuse your followers. If you can’t maintain brand consistency, then how can you possibly handle customer questions or their orders? Stick to the same colour scheme and graphics throughout your social media platforms. This will help with your brand recognition!
DON’T: Use every single social media platform
It’s tempting to be on every single platform. Your business will reach more people, right? However, not every platform matches every business. And you need to decide which ones work best for you and get you’re the most results. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting your valuable time! Sometimes it really is a case of quality over quantity.
DON’T: Post too much
It’s easy to think that the more you post the better interaction you’ll get from potential clients. Sadly, it can have the opposite effect. If your brand is simply too promotional or is constantly posting the same content, then you’re going to struggle to keep a hold of those followers. The number of posts recommended varies for each platform, so do some additional research if you want to avoid overstepping the mark.
And finally, DON’T: Forget to set goals
Do you want to improve your customer experience? Or get more traffic to your website? Avoid setting up social media without a plan in place. Formally set your goals and check in with your progress regularly.
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