Social media strategy for small businesses, on a single page.

Why one page is enough

When they hear strategy, many people think of fifty-slide concepts. As a small business you do not need those. A strategy is nothing more than a few decisions you make once, so that you do not have to rethink everything every week: Why are you doing social media, for whom, where, with which topics, how often and who takes care of it?

If these answers fit on one page, that is not a weakness but an advantage. You will actually read a single page, you can pin it next to your screen and show it to your team. The following seven steps take you through it.

Step 1: Set one main goal

Social media can do a lot, but not everything at once. Choose one main goal that suits your business best right now:

• More enquiries: the joinery wants more kitchen jobs in the region.
• Finding staff: the plumber has been looking for an apprentice for months.
• Keeping regulars: the café wants guests to come back more often and see new cakes.
• Becoming known: the new physiotherapy practice wants people in town to know it.
• Building trust: the tax adviser wants to show that she knows her way around business start-ups.

Step 2: Describe your audience

Write down in two sentences who you want to reach. The more specific, the easier it will be to come up with topics later. Instead of “everyone”, rather: “Families with a house in the Perg district who want to renovate their bathroom in the next few years.” Or: “Founders in Linz who have their first year of self-employment ahead of them.”

Then ask yourself: What is on these people’s minds? What questions do they ask you in conversation? Where are they more likely to be, on Instagram or on LinkedIn? The answers are already half of your topic plan.

Step 3: Choose two channels at most

Better one channel done well than four done by halves. For most small businesses one or two are enough. As a rough guide:

• Instagram: strong if your work looks good and you want to reach private customers. Typical for hospitality, beauty, retail and many trade businesses.
• LinkedIn: strong if you want to reach business customers, partners or skilled staff. Typical for consulting, professional practices and businesses that work for companies. The guide Getting started on LinkedIn as a small business explains the first steps.
• Both: makes sense if you have two audiences, for example private customers on Instagram and future staff on LinkedIn. How to prepare one topic for both is in the guide One topic, two channels.

Step 4: Three or four content pillars

Content pillars are the broad areas your posts come from. Three or four are enough. These suit many businesses:

• Showing your work: results, projects, dishes, before and after.
• Sharing knowledge: tips, answers to customer questions, short explanations.
• Showing people: team, apprentices, everyday life behind the scenes.
• Occasions and region: seasons, holidays, local events, news. Many more ideas are in the guide Content ideas for small businesses.

Step 5: Set rhythm and time

Decide how often you post, in a way you can manage even in a busy week. A good starting point is two to three posts a week on Instagram and one or two on LinkedIn. Details are in the guides How often to post on Instagram and How often to post on LinkedIn.

Plan the time for it too, ideally as a fixed slot in your calendar. How much time you realistically need is covered in the guide Social media time for small businesses.

Step 6: Clarify who does what

Many strategies fail not because of the ideas, but because nobody feels responsible. So write down who does what: Who takes photos, who writes, who approves, who answers comments and messages? And who takes over when that person is on holiday?

In a one-person business that is of course you. Then it helps to bundle tasks, for example taking all the photos for a week on one day. Whether an agency is worth it is covered in the guide Agency or do it yourself.

Step 7: How to tell it is working

Measure what fits your goal from step 1, not just the number of followers. Take a quarter of an hour once a month and look at these points:

• Enquiries: do customers say they saw you on Instagram or LinkedIn? Feel free to ask.
• Applications: are there applications that refer to your posts?
• Reactions: which posts were saved, shared or commented on? Do more of those.
• Profile visits and clicks: do people visit your profile and click the link?

Example: a joinery’s strategy on one page

This is what the finished page could look like for a joinery with six people in the Mühlviertel:

• Goal: more enquiries for kitchens and built-in furniture from the region.
• Audience: families and couples who are building or renovating, within an hour’s drive.
• Channels: Instagram for customers, LinkedIn on the boss’s profile for architects and future staff.
• Topics: finished projects, glimpses into the workshop, wood and its care, the team.
• Rhythm: Instagram three times a week, LinkedIn once a week.
• Responsible: the boss’s daughter takes photos and writes, the boss approves and answers questions about jobs.
• Measuring: once a month, count enquiries and ask where people came from.

Putting the strategy into practice

In the next step, the strategy becomes a content calendar: a list of which post appears on which day. How to set one up is in the guide Content calendar for social media. Look at your strategy again every few months. If your goal changes, for example because the order books are full and you are now looking for staff, adjust the page.