Congratulations! You’ve launched your business, whether it’s your first, second or third – it’s amazing. You’ve done everything correctly, your phones are working, you’ve sent out the flyers, your potential customers know how to find you, everything is in place.

However, you aren’t on social media. There is no evidence your business exists anywhere online. Google can’t even find the street you’re on.

Maybe you’re okay with that because you haven’t fully bought into social media. You’ve decided that it’s too much to do and word of mouth is best. Or maybe you don’t know enough about it.

Here’s a quick reality: You’re leaving money on the table. And no one wants to do that.

Why Your Brand Needs Social Media

Your customers are online and if you’re not, you’re losing out to a competitor. 

You’re also missing out on your chance to grow beyond what you are today, and growth is not something to be okay with missing out on. 

With social media, you’re not just presenting your business to the world, you’re building important relationships with your customers that will come in handy later. 

Laying the Foundations of Your Home

The biggest mistake most businesses new to social media make is they try to copy what others are doing without being sure if it matches their goals.

Getting started on social media is like building a home. You’re not just going to build a home without deciding if building a home matches your goals, right? So why jump on social media without writing out your goals?

Here are five steps to help you get started on social media.

1. Determine your goals: It’s important to use social media with purpose. This translates into having a clear purpose with your social media. Are you trying to generate sales? Do you want to build brand awareness? Knowing the answers to these questions will go a long way in determining which social media networks will work best for you and your content strategy.
2. Determine Your Audience: Knowing your audience makes social media so much easier. You know who they are, what they do, what kind of content they respond well to so you can create the content especially for them. Not that you can’t create content for another audience, because you totally can. But knowing who your tribe is, saves you so much more time in managing your time and resources. 
3. Have a Social Media Strategy: Having a strategy helps keep you intentional and on-brand. Let’s say your business sells cheese, but one day you saw a funny joke that made you laugh so you shared it to your page, as funny as it may be to you, it will confuse your audience. Unless the joke is about cheese. A strategy also keeps you consistent, keeps you engaging with your customers, and it gives you a voice. 
4. Decide Which Social Media Works For You: All the major social media sites serve different purposes, I will write a little more on this later. But for starters, when you know who your target audience is, you can also research where they are. Which brings me to the next point.
5. Audit Your Resources: Chances are if you’re not on social media because you know little about it, you’re also not someone who knows how to create content. When you’re choosing which social media works for you, you’re also deciding which type of content to make. For example, Youtube is a video platform, if you don’t know how to make video content, then you automatically know Youtube isn’t for you. But if this is a market you want to get into, then the question remains who will create your content? Is this same person going to maintain your social media accounts for you? Are they also going to be in charge of answering customers on social media? Do you trust them to? Are you willing to learn? These are all important questions and should be answered before you even create an account on social media.

This list can be much longer, but these five steps are the steps to get you thinking socially. Once you’ve conquered these five steps, we will then get you ready to create your accounts, find your brand voice and build a brand you can be proud of.