Mediaboss Marketing

As 2017 unfolds, small businesses should take a look at what didnt work in 2016 and find ways to improve in the upcoming year. While you work to control spending and shed some of the holiday pounds, dont forget about making social media resolutions for your business.

Social media in 2017 will really be a defining factor in successful marketing strategies and strong businesses. In 2016, social media boomed for businesses. It was part of marketing strategies in previous years, but new advertising updates for social platforms and business-friendly changes made it easier than ever for organizations to make connections and offer valuable customer service.

This year, social media will be even more important, particularly as far as your strategy is concerned. You wont have the competitive edge of being the first to use social marketing to its full advantage, so youll have to find ways to stand out as a business and create a more powerful strategy.

Online marketing and business building guru Gary Vaynerchuksays social media should be the biggest marketing target for small businesses, adding:

In 2017, if you are a business or organization of any kind that wants to be heard in the world, refocusing on the content you put out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIn, Medium and whatever else has the markets attention at the time is a huge factor.

Overall, Vaynerchuk believes that social media for startups and small businesses is the best channel for your marketing budget because of the connections to be made and networking to be done.

If youre a small business, theres probably a lot more that you can do for your marketing campaign on social media. As you make some goals for a more effective business year, dont forget to include these useful resolutions.

Social media is all about communicating with your target audience, and there are certain applications that can make the process easier. Whether youre looking to communicate internally or across channels, here are some of the most highly recommended communication appsavailable:

Through these apps, you can make face-to-face connections, send SMS messages, voice broadcast and chat instantly to make your social interactions that much more powerful.

Investing in your content should be a top priority in the new year, particularly when it comes to posting across multiple channels. Delivering inconsistent content is all too common with small businesses, making your strategy appear unreliable and unprofessional to consumers. Vaynerchuk says:

Quality content is so important to marketing to anyone under the age of 40 right now. Anyone in that demographic discovers a business for the first time by either Google searching or finding their content on social media. If you are not crushing it and focusing on the content that you put out on the most important social platforms, youre going to become mute and obsolete in the modern day of doing business.

Demonstrate that youre committed to posting useful and regular content to your clients. Use a content calendarto help you stay on track with your content and make sure its split evenly across all channels.

Another important part of posting content on social media is tailoring the information to match your target audience. If youre selling products meant for stay-at-home moms, for example, marketing your content to 22-year-old bachelors wont do your strategy much good.

Make 2017 the year you finally develop customer personasthat guide your marketing efforts. This information will show you demographics, trending topics, and favorite social channelsmaking your marketing easier in 2017.

Even if youre only spending $200 per week, your paid media dollarscan make your content skyrocket. This is particularly true for YouTube and Facebook video content, which receives billions of views every day.

Just remember that its content that carries your strategy forward. Your social media budget should allocate about 75 percent to content creation and about 25 percent to content amplification through paid advertising venues.

No amount of paid media is going to turn bad creative into good content, says Vaynerchuk, and this is a principle that should be a primary focus in 2017. Youll see far more value in your social efforts if you focus on building your content.

Larry Altonis an independent business consultant specializing in social media trends, business, and entrepreneurship. Follow him on Twitterand LinkedIn.

Image courtesy of eli_asenova/iStock.

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4 Social Media Resolutions for Small Businesses Adweek - FishbowlDC (blog)