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By now, most small business owners know they need to be active on social media. Regardless of your industry or niche, your customers expect to find you there. And social media’s free, so… it’s all easy, right?

I wish it were that easy. In fact, I notice that a lot of small business social media pages are missing the mark. They’re not getting the engagement – or the leads – they want and they’re not sure why.

Fortunately, the answer is pretty simple, you’re making mistakes and they’re probably the same ones that other small businesses are making.

What should you do? Identify the mistakes and stop making them! Here they the most common social media missteps and what you can do to fix them.

Being Inconsistent with Your Account 

When people follow brands on social media, they want to know what kind of content they’ll be getting. If you look at big brands, you’ll notice that they have a clear rubric they use to...

Audits. Nobody likes them, am I right?

I get it. I really do. But audits serve a purpose – and if your business is closed right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then this is the perfect time to change ‘audit’ from a dirty word to a tool that can help your business thrive.

Not sure how?
The good news is, it’s easy to do.

Your business could probably use some fine-tuning, and an internal audit of your resources and processes can help you get everything in order so, when you do reopen, you’ll be more successful than ever. Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Website Review
Since your website is your online HQ, it’s a good place to start your audit. You may want to review your competitors’ websites to get a handle on what they’re doing. Then make note of anything that’s outdated or not working the way it should, including:

• Your site’s design
• Mobile accessibility
• Navigation
• Site speed
• Broken/outdated links
• SEO

When deciding what type of lead magnet will attract the most signups (leads) for your business it’s natural to want to go right to your best offer – the thing that’ll convince first-time visitors to your site to dive right in and hire you, retain your services you or purchase your product.

There’s just one problem with that – it’s not enough. And if your primary (or only) lead magnet is a free consultation, there are some things I’m willing to bet you’re doing wrong.

If your free consultation offer isn’t blowing up your calendar, there are things you can do to get it on track.

Why Offer a Free Consultation? 
Why offer a free consultation at all? The short answer is that if you are someone who’s an expert in your field, time spent talking to you is valuable. People will want to take you up on your offer.

Some businesses are naturals for the free consultation offer. I’m talking about:

• Marketing firms
• Life...

Social media marketing is a must – but getting organic engagement is becoming increasingly difficult. With sites like Facebook and Twitter tweaking their algorithms constantly, local businesses need proven strategies to ensure that their customers see and engage with their posts.

Engagement isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition, but it’s undeniable that some strategies to increase engagement work better than others.

So, instead of wasting your time with a bunch of ideas that may not work, let’s focus on the ones that do. Here are some of the most reliable ways to get the social media engagement your business deserves.

Live Video
The thing about static social media posts is that they’re, well… static. People may engage with them or they may not – but there’s no real incentive to jump in and get involved.

The same cannot be said of live video. Live video is of the moment – and it requires audience participation.

Instead of...

In a perfect world, everyone who buys your products would talk about them to everyone they meet.

The problem is, we don’t live in a perfect world. And, while some of your customers might be ardent fans, others may need a bit of coaxing to get there.

The good news? You can turn customers into enthusiastic brand ambassadors in just four easy steps.

That might sound too good to be true, but it’s not. The trick is knowing what makes someone a brand ambassador – and then leading them down the road instead of hoping they’ll get there on their own.

What Can Brand Ambassadors Do for You
Brand ambassadors are more than just enthusiastic fans. When brand ambassadorship is at its best, customers identify heavily with the brands they love.
One example is Apple customers. You’ve probably noticed that they:

• Associate the brand with their self-image
• Assign traits of the brand to themselves
• Eagerly await the release of new products

Apple might be an extreme example...

The answer?

Understand the moments when customers pick up their phones to look for your business and craft content that gives it to them.

One way is to use what Google has coined Micro-Moments, I.E. “the Customer Journey.”

What are they and how can you use them to find new customers? Here’s what you need to know.

In February of 2018, Facebook announced plans to prioritize personal content and de-prioritize content from pages.

That means that if you’ve got a Facebook page for your local business, your content is only being seen by a very small percentage of your followers unless you pay to promote it.

Nothing to be done, right?