How a Strong Social Media and Email Marketing Presence has Saved Small Businesses

During the unprecedented times of COVID, we are watching some businesses have to permanently shut their doors.  Through this, we have followed some social media campaigns that local businesses have created to keep their doors open, and it has led to some interesting thoughts that should change the way businesses approach their digital marketing.

Social media marketing

Many busy business owners believe that their products or services are so great that they “sell themselves” or that they have an amazing sales team, so they don’t need to invest time or money in social media or building an email list.  But this pandemic should change that thought process.  The restaurants that are still thriving and have been able to employ most of their employees at some capacity have been building their social media following for years. In some cases, they were able to build their following in just months.  

The same goes for other small businesses.  When they had to close their doors to the public or let their salespeople go, how are they communicating their messages?  They have almost no email list, they have a small following on Facebook, but they haven’t posted in years, so who is paying attention to what they are doing?  How do they get an audience now to let people know they have specials or are still able to do business but in a different way?  These owners are left talking to themselves in an empty room or fishing in an empty pond.

If your business makes it through this hard time, start investing either your time or money into your social media.  When people are ready to spend money again, they will want to spend it locally, and with a business, they feel good about it.  Even with your doors closed to the public, you can still take this time to post on social media to build up a following for when your doors can open again.  Here are a couple of post ideas to help get you started:

  • Employee spotlight posts – Reintroduce some of your main team members.  Once you post the spotlight post, encourage employees to share the post to help your page get a larger following.
  • Past project posts – Take pride in the work your team has done.  If you have pictures of past projects, share them, and use local hashtags like #milwaukeewi #shoplocal #supportlocal #chicagoillinois, or you can research other popular hashtags.
  • Do something nice for the community.  If you don’t have the funds to help some local businesses out, you can share their post on your social media to help them spread the word, and hopefully, they will notice your page and someday do the same.  You can even partner with local businesses for gift card giveaway contests.  

If you need some help getting your businesses social media together, our team at SCM can help.  Social media marketing can be a struggle and these are challenging times so get started by calling (920)788-6600.