Blerrp.com, an online community forum that hosts discussions on a wide range of business topics, posted an article on their blog titled, “99 Social Media Marketing Tips for Businesses with a Limited Budget,” that shares advice from WMT’s CEO, Lorrie Thomas Ross, as well as advice from many other industry experts. Lorrie is passionate about serving small businesses and entrepreneurs, and her tip for businesses with smaller budgets should definitely not be overlooked.
With the majority of consumers being active and engaged on social media every single day to connect with businesses and products to work with, it is essential that your business has a clean and consistent online presence. Blerrp emphasizes that social media can be used to drive traffic, sales, and revenue for your business, so a limited budget should not keep your business from taking advantage of the many growth opportunities that the proper use of social media has to offer.
Lorrie’s key tip: shift your focus. Instead of focusing on “spending” for your social media marketing, focus more on investing so that you can get the most out of both your time and money. Lorrie advises that you start with a blog, claiming that blogs are the “nucleus of social media marketing.” Here’s why:
- Blogs are where the bulk of your social media posts will stem from
- Blog posts that are helpful, informative, and thoughtful can be shared on all platforms
- Blog content is indexed by search engines, thus boosting search visibility
- Great blog content boosts your business’ credibility
Because blog posts can be shared multiple times and across all platforms, they are a great way to keep your content and business relevant, while giving your business more content for less time and money spent!
There is a great collection of other useful tips in this article from other experts, business owners, and entrepreneurs! One piece of advice that particularly stuck out to me and is relevant to Lorrie’s advice came from Keegan Webb, the founder of Marble (his is #15 on the list). He notes the importance of creating quality, audience-specific content, claiming that you should be focused on the relationship you are building with your current audience and followers rather than the number of followers and likes you social accounts have. He advises to “focus on feeding your biggest fans…who will follow you on social media and love all of you future, organic posts.” If you are creating blog content that is audience-specific and caters to your follower’s needs, those loyal followers will help your business grow.
If you want to read more simple and invaluable social media strategies, check out Blerrp’s blog post here. Lorrie’s advice is #26 on the list!