Blog Post: Navigating Social Media as a Local Business

---

Modernization is extremely important in the 21st century. Conducting and guiding a business takes more than just the simple business strategies and strategic approaches. Local businesses make the mistake of ‘playing safe’. As a local business owner, it is important that you keep up with the modern trends. Social media plays a major role in networking your company to many others especially internationally. By promoting your local business through it can help with brand visibility and awareness, customer engagement and works as a way of cost – effective marketing which is extremely inexpensive and an easy way to branch you out.

Social media is a digital platform that allows individuals to express their creativity and be influenced by others as well. This online social has developed in many ways through marketing, customer engagement and brand visibility.

Marketing

Marketing is a strategy that is utilized amongst many local businesses especially The Bahamas. This is a way of branching out to other organizations and major companies that can potentially help you with the expansion of your business. Social media plays a vital role in marketing because it is extremely efficient and an easily way to get your business on the map. In the past social media has been used for just recreational time and entertainment instead of a marketing strategy for individual. As of now that changed significantly leading to businesses utilizing this digital tool to not only promote but to make intense monetary impact. As of today, you can create sponsored advertisements, reach out to your expanding clientele and has created many ways on how you can get feedback from customers which can essentially make your business better.

Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is extremely important in fixing something your business truly lacks. This can only resolve if you can identify what your customers truly likes and dislike. Social media enforces this by allowing businesses to display Q&As, polls where the clientele can vote on what they want more of and finally building a relationship with customers creating loyalty. These ensure healthy relationships between supplier and consumer and is more direct instead of passive.

Brand Visibility

Brand visibility is the outsourcing to individuals whether domestically or internationally. This digital platform is the perfect thing that can be used for such activity. Local businesses can expand by participating in social media propaganda. Hashtags allow your business to appear in the feeds of individuals in the amount of one hundred or even one hundred thousand. Mentioning famous influencers and celebrities can your profile attraction to persuade potential viewers to patronize your business. Collaborating with upcoming and even well – known influencers especially those on popular platforms can also work as a form of persuasion. Additionally, this will make individuals think that if my favorite celebrity is either wearing it or using it then this must be extremely good.

As a local business owner, the purpose of a blog post is to help with assisting you on how to better enhance your business and understand how to better manage it on social media. It gives clear advice and even words of encouragement to help you better pursue your during this venture.

    Understanding Social Media Platforms for Local Businesses

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Facebook

Facebook is a powerful tool for local businesses because it allows local businesses to engage and communicate with their target audience. In addition, with this the utilization of Facebook ads help with precise targeting audience and outsources to every demographic.

Local businesses can use Facebook for community building by creating Facebook groups for clientele to join, encourage engagement with polls and Q&As and engage through post and comments.

Instagram

Instagram which is also a social media platform that local businesses can utilize for branding and promoting. This social media platform is more useful for this because it has a wider algorithm of people who have the app downloaded. Instagram is a powerful tool because it is amazing for promoting brands, excellent for monetary revenue once customers interact with the page and has an excellent of allowing clientele to purchase supply from that avenue.

Local businesses can use Instagram for community building by engaging with customers through open discussions on live streams and polls, creating brand hashtags to helps customers bring you more attraction and by sharing relatable and high value content.

Twitter

Twitter is a digital platform that allows individuals to share their ideas and opinions daily. This is immensely helpful for local business owners especially in The Bahamas because people are constantly engaging in debates and the latest news and this can help your business grow tremendously. This digital platform can be a powerful tool for local businesses because it allows them to receive constant feedback, positive or negative, that can assist their business with flourishing. In addition to this it helps them to engage with their audience and create collaborations with various companies as a form of networking.

Local businesses can Twitter for community by interacting with customers through regular to gain feedback, creating and using brand hashtags to market themselves globally and share updates with announcements.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is extremely different compared to the other three platforms listed i.e. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This platform is a form of social media but more on professional setting. On LinkedIn local businesses would come across it as a way of networking and building relationships with various industries and companies. It is a powerful tool for local businesses because it allows them to market them to various individuals and to promote their achievements and local stories like a newsletter.

Local businesses can LinkedIn for community building by creating and optimizing a LinkedIn page, engage with local community content and by promoting and participating in local events.

Challenges and Pitfalls of Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses

Challenges and Pitfalls	Solutions
Consistent content creation	·  Use a calendar to organize dates on when you will create content! ·  Utilize user – generated apps such as Canva and Capcut to make content creation with over 100,000 ideas to choose from. Gives you something exciting to post at least once a day if needed.
Negative feedback and Criticism	· Respond calmy and professionally because you have an image to maintain as a business owner. · Encourage customers to leave positive feedback to balance it out so it does not paint a bad image on your business.
Engaging an audience	· Focus on making authentic content instead of just looking at a follower count. ·  Utilize hashtags, tags and collaborate with influencers to engage your audience.

In conclusion, social media is extremely important for local businesses because it helps with exposure to mass amount of individuals, extremely inexpensive and is effective with networking strategies.

My name is Serenity Mackey. I am a 20 - year - old sophomore at The University of The Bahamas. My major is Computer Information Systems.