If you've just started your business, social media is a great way to promote it.

However, you may not have the funds to hire a professional social media manager.

Worse still, creating daily posts on three or ten different platforms every day sounds daunting and time-consuming.

But don't worry, there are free social media marketing strategies that are fast and easy to implement.

Forget Ads

If you just started your business and are struggling with all the costs required for a building, permits, products, etc the last thing you need is a monthly social media marketing bill.

Even if you do everything yourself, you’ll have to pay around $0.92 every time someone clicks on your advertisement on Facebook. Youtube ads cost $0.10 per viewer. The more platforms you’re on, the more expensive advertising becomes.

You can start using these advertisement methods once you have more money to spend on them.

For now, focus on publishing content that customers will engage with.

Make a Long Term Marketing Plan

Simply waking up and posting a few short sentences on Twitter and Facebook every morning won't grow your business.

It would help if you had a plan for your content and graphics.

Even more importantly, you need to take into account the nuances of different social media platforms.

Every Social Platform is Different

People on Instagram are looking for interesting photographs.

Pinterest users are the same, but they're also looking for shopping inspiration, new recipes, and anything else that might pick their interest.

Twitter users are looking for a short, interesting piece of conversation or information.

Facebook users want to keep up with family, friends, and everything happening around town.

It's important to understand these differences when creating your text and images.

If you're trying to convince people in a smaller town to come to your new restaurant, try posting pictures of you and your staff cooking delicious meals on Instagram. You could also post to a local community Facebook group about how your prime ribs are half off today.

An infographic with meal or food pairing ideas could be a great way to pick someone's interest on Pinterest. You can follow up later with a picture of your delicious food and a sentence or two about your establishment.

Reuse Posts and Videos

You shouldn't post the same thing on the same platform. However, it's a good strategy to create one or two posts per day that act as a template.

Blog posts are the best type of content to repurpose. You can get an entire month's worth of social media posts out of one or two blogs. All you have to do is chop up the blog into small bits of text, find the appropriate hashtags, and add a graphic.

Once you have these social media posts ready, you'll want to create different versions of them that can be used on different platforms.

For example, you could make a Facebook post with a picture of a local client using your power tools to create something. You can then post this to a few local Facebook groups.

Next, you take the same picture and add two or three more photos of the individual tools and add them to Instagram. It may be a good idea to see if a customer will let you put up a picture of finished projects they worked on using your tools.

Lastly, create a list of tools and supplies your company provides that somebody would need to complete a similar project. Turn that list into an infographic and add it to your Pinterest account!

Get Your Customers Involved

If you have a good relationship with your customers, I'm sure you'll be able to find a few who would be willing to send pictures of themselves using your products. 

If you have a local business, this is even better. It's a good way to build trust in the community and assure new customers that your products or services are worth trying.

TikTok

Regardless of what you think of the app, TikTok is huge, especially among people under thirty. If that’s your target market, start creating fun, engaging shorts that you can post several times a week.

TikTok always has new trends showing up. Find one that you can use in a video to increase your audience.

Conclusion

You can get customers through social media without spending money.

However, the content can’t be meaningless “filler content”.

Create something that looks good and appeals to people’s emotions (greed, anger, fear of missing out, comfort, etc) and you’ll get results.

If you need more advice on how to use social media and your website to grow your business contact me and schedule a consultation.