Six years ago, our woman-owned small business invested in a new form of marketing: a Social Media Specialist was hired to the Avcomm team. Carey McCoy was brought onboard and tasked with these missions:

1. Introduce Avcomm Solutions to key social media platforms by creating a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

2. Create a blog full of updated, original, and user-friendly content that will provide value.

3. Increase the number of visitors to the Avcomm Solutions web site and boost SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

4. Be seen as a leading reseller in the headset market.

Ultimately, these tasks together have built the Avcomm Solutions brand, increased customer base, and provided valuable knowledge of our products, solutions to common workplace issues, and more. For these reasons, we recommend that all small businesses dive into social media immediately!

If you don't know where to start (or, are afraid to begin), keep reading! The worst thing you can do is wait. Social media is here to stay, and most people today have social media accounts. Research confirms that Google is the #1 way consumers resolve issues, answer questions, and research products before purchase. This has been true for Avcomm Solutions, as visitors to our web site are searching for answers to questions that only we (as experts in our devices) can answer.

Some Advice as You Build Out Your Company's Social Media Presence:

1. Don't expect immediate results. Building a brand and gaining followers takes time. Give yourself permission to build a solid foundation of content and relationships.

2. Try new things. Maybe the social media sites that we've listed above aren't quite right for your business. Try Instagram; TikTok; Pinterest; or other platforms that will reach your specific customer set. Think about where and who you turn to, when you have questions about your products and services. Do your research, and also check out your competitors: what makes their accounts interesting? appealing? successful? Then get your accounts set up.

3. Keep the content coming. The very worst thing you can do is to start social media accounts (or a blog), post a couple of times, and then either sporadically post content, or abandon the accounts altogether. Think of social media as building a relationship; it's hard to count on someone when they are not frequent contributors to the conversation. We’d recommend using a social media management platform that allows you to manage content and schedule posts ahead of time and gives you one dashboard view into all of your company’s social media activities. Even if we're out of the office for a day (or a week!), scheduling posts ahead of time is a snap, and keeps the conversation going with our followers.

4. Hire experts. Take a look at our YouTube channel, and you will see the evolution of our videos. The first videos were self-filmed; most recent videos have been filmed by professional videographers. When we made the decision this year to focus on creating more content for our YouTube channel, we really wanted to find a company within close proximity to our office, who would also provide value beyond just the video quality. After exploring options, we decided to go with a local, up-and-coming small business who could bring our vision, words and products to life, in a professional way. We encourage you to seek out local companies in your area for the filming and editing of your videos. By letting the professionals handle the videography, it allows our staff to focus on content creation and messaging.

While this is most definitely not a comprehensive list, it does provide a quick overview of what we believe are the most important takeaways in six years of social media marketing at a small business. Our advice: Start now. Don't wait. Everyone else is doing it and reaping the rewards.