Let’s face it: social media can be a challenge! But it’s also a fantastic way for a small business to grow and reach potential customers. In this article, I’m going to share tips to use social media for dry cleaners that don’t break the bank or take hours of your precious time.
Dry Cleaners can use social media for the following:
- To connect with current customers
- Find new customers
- Respond to questions about their services
- Become an expert in their community
- Connect with the local community with geo-location
- Answer questions and become a resource
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Our goal with this project is to help you be successful in marketing your business and use of Kreussler products.
You can take these materials and add your branding on them before you share them on social media. You can use an app like eZy Watermark to add your logo. Available for iOS and Android.
In the above example, I’ve added a logo to an image. You need the image and the logo, preferably with a transparent background, on your phone. I used the eZy Watermark app for this.
Use the right marketing tools
As a small business owner — tools can be your best friend.
They’ll help you get organized and create a method to the madness.
Using the right tools will save you time, money and a whole lot of frustration. Unfortunately, there’s not one social media tool that does everything that you need so you’ll need to create a social media tool kit that works for you.
I’ve tested and tried just about everything out there, and these are my favorites for small business owners:
- Trello – This organizes my social media and blogging life. They have a free and gold plan for single users or team plans.
- Buffer – social media management with small business affordability – the free or awesome plan for $10.
- Social Champ – for social posting and organizing social media content.
- Canva – free version or Canva for Work $9.95 per month. Canva is an easy to use design program that you can use to create social media graphics or customize photos with your logo.
- Adobe Spark – Graphic design and video – free version or pro for $9.99 per month. The free version doesn’t allow you to remove the Adobe Spark logo. Spark is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, so if you’re paying for the Creative Cloud, Spark is included.
- Promo image resizer – free! Resizes your image to the optimal sizes.
Where are your customers?
Instead of focusing on the demographic of the customers you HAVE — consider focusing on the customers you WANT.
That information will tell you which social networks you should be spending time on.
As you learn more about how to use social media for your small business, the social sites you should be on will become almost obvious to you.
If you don’t have a clear understanding about which social networks to be on, I recommend you start with a presence on one of these:
- Facebook (be sure to setup the geotargeting for ads)
- Instagram (excellent for small business)
- LinkedIn (like an international Rotary Club!)
- Twitter (listening to the conversations on Twitter will provide valuable insight)
Once you decide which social network[s] you’ll use — be sure to cross promote that content in your other online marketing and PR pieces also!
Don’t feel like you need to be on all the social networks – it’s better to be active on one than weak on many. If you’re starting fresh today, I’d recommend Instagram. It’s tough to grow a Facebook Page from scratch now.
Learn how to use Facebook and Instagram
Did you know that Facebook has FREE online learning courses for Facebook and Instagram called Blueprint? These easy to digest tutorials can teach you everything you need to know. Have the person handling your social media take these Blueprint lessons.
Avoid engagement bait
Engagement bait is posting things like “LIKE this if you’re an Aries!” or “Click LIKE if you…” Facebook demotes posts individual posts from people and Pages that use engagement bait, and this means that they don’t show them to people on Facebook.
Businesses that use engagement bait tactics in their posts should expect their reach on these posts to decrease. Meanwhile, Pages that repeatedly share engagement bait posts will see more significant drops in reach. Page Admins should continue to focus on posting relevant and meaningful stories that do not use engagement bait tactics. Learn more about engagement bait and how to avoid using it here.
Plan your social content
I’ve made a Trello board for you to use for a planning calendar. You can copy the board here.
Trello is a great place to save content you want to post or work with an assistant to see what they’re planning.
I hope this gives you some ideas for your social media marketing. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly marketing solutions.
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