I am thinking of starting a company that employs generative AI but I am not sure whether to do it. It seems so easy to get off the ground. But if it is so easy for me, won’t it be easy for others too? 

This year, more entrepreneurs have asked me this question than any other. Part of what is so exciting about generative AI is that the upsides seem limitless. For instance, if you have managed to create an AI model that has some kind of general language reasoning ability, you have a piece of intelligence that can potentially be adapted toward various new products that could also leverage this ability — like screen writing, marketing materials, teaching software, customer service, and more.

For example, the software company Luka built an AI companion called Replika that enables customers to have open-ended conversations with an “AI friend.” Because the technology was so powerful, managers at Luka began receiving inbound requests to provide a white label enterprise solution for businesses wishing to improve their chatbot customer service. In the end, Luka’s managers used the same underlying technology to spin off both an enterprise solution and a direct-to-consumer AI dating app (think Tinder, but for “dating” AI characters).

In deciding whether a generative AI company is for you, I recommend establishing answers to the following two big questions: 1) Will your company compete on foundational models, or on top-layer applications that leverage these foundational models? And 2) Where along the continuum between a highly scripted solution and a highly generative solution will your company be located? Depending on your answers to these two questions, there will be long-lasting implications for your ability to defend yourself against the competition.

Foundational Models or Apps?

Tech giants are now renting out their most generalizable proprietary models — i.e., “foundational models” — and companies like Eluether.ai and Stability AI are providing open-source versions of these foundational models at a fraction of the cost. Foundational models are becoming commoditized, and only a few startups can afford to compete in this space.

You may think that foundational models are the most attractive, because they will be widely used and their many applications will provide lucrative opportunities for growth. What is more, we are living in exciting times where some of the most sophisticated AI is already available “off the shelf” to get started with.

Entrepreneurs who want to base their company on foundational models are in for a challenge, though. As in any commoditized market, the companies that will survive are those that offer unbundled offerings for cheap or that deliver increasingly enhanced capabilities. For example, speech-to-text APIs like Deepgram and Assembly AI compete not only with each other but with the likes of Amazon and Google in part by offering cheaper, unbundled solutions. Even so, these firms are in a fierce war on price, speed, model accuracy, and other features. In contrast, tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google make significant R&D investments that enable them to relentlessly deliver cutting-edge advances in image, language, and (increasingly) audio and video reasoning. For instance, it is estimated that OpenAI spent anywhere between $2 and $12 million to computationally train ChatGPT — and this is just one of several APIs that they offer, with more on the way.

Instead of competing on increasingly commoditized foundational models, most startups should differentiate themselves by offering “top layer” software applications that leverage other companies’ foundational models. They can do this by fine-tuning foundational models on their own high quality, proprietary datasets that are unique to their customer solution, to provide high value to customers.

For instance, the marketing content creator, Jasper AI, grew to unicorn status largely by leveraging foundational models from OpenAI. To this day, the firm uses OpenAI to help customers generate content for blogs, social media posts, website copy and more. At the same time, the app is tailored for their marketer and copywriter customers, providing specialized marketing content. The company also provides other specialized tools, like an editor that multiple team members can work on in tandem. Now that the company has gained traction, going forward it can afford to spend more of its resources on reducing its dependency on the foundational models that enabled it to grow in the first place.

Since the top-layer apps are where these companies find their competitive advantage, they lie in a delicate balance between protecting the privacy of their datasets from large tech players even as they rely on these players for foundational models. Given this, some startups may be tempted to build their own in-house foundational models. Yet, this is unlikely to be a good use of precious startup funds, given the challenges noted above. Most startups are better off leveraging foundational models to grow fast, instead of reinventing the wheel.

From Scripted to Generative

Your company will need to live somewhere along a continuum from a purely scripted solution to a purely generative one. Scripted solutions involve selecting an appropriate response from a dataset of predefined, scripted responses, whereas generative ones involve generating new, unique responses from scratch.

Scripted solutions are safer and constrained, but also less creative and human-like, whereas generative solutions are riskier and unconstrained, but also more creative and human-like. More scripted approaches are necessary for certain use-cases and industries, like medical and educational applications, where there need to be clear guardrails on what the app can do. Yet, when the script reaches its limit, users may lose their engagement and customer retention may suffer. Moreover, it is more challenging to grow a scripted solution because you constrain yourself right from the start, limiting your options down the road.

On the other hand, more generative solutions carry their own challenges. Because AI-based offerings include intelligence, there are more degrees of freedom in how consumers can interact with them, increasing the risks. For example, one married father tragically committed suicide following a conversation with an AI chatbot app, Chai, that encouraged him to sacrifice himself to save the planet. The app leveraged a foundational language model (a bespoke version of GPT-4) from EluetherAI. The founders of Chai have since modified the app to so that mentions of suicidal ideation are served with helpful text. Interestingly, one of the founders of Chai, Thomas Rianlan, took the blame, saying: “It wouldn’t be accurate to blame EleutherAI’s model for this tragic story, as all the optimization towards being more emotional, fun and engaging are the result of our efforts.”

It is challenging for managers to anticipate all the ways in which things can go wrong with a highly generative app, given the “black box” nature of the underlying AI. Doing so involves anticipating risky scenarios that may be highly rare. One way of anticipating such cases is to pay human annotators to screen content for potentially harmful categories, such as sex, hate speech, violence, self-harm, and harassment, then use these labels to train models that automatically flag such content. Yet, it is still difficult to come up with an exhaustive taxonomy. Thus, managers who deploy highly generative solutions must be prepared to proactively anticipate the risks, which can be both difficult and expensive. The same goes for if later you decide to offer your solution as a service to other companies.

Because a fully generative solution is closer to natural, human-like intelligence, it is more attractive from the standpoint of retention and growth, because it is more engaging and can be applied to more new use cases.

• • •

Many entrepreneurs are considering starting companies that leverage the latest generative AI technology, but they must ask themselves whether they have what it takes to compete on increasingly commoditized foundational models, or whether they should instead differentiate on an app that leverages these models.

They must also consider what type of app they want to offer on the continuum from a highly scripted to a highly generative solution, given the different pros and cons accompanying each. Offering a more scripted solution may be safer but limit their retention and growth options, whereas offering a more generative solution is fraught with risk but is more engaging and flexible.

We hope that entrepreneurs will ask these questions before diving into their first generative AI venture, so that they can make informed decisions about what kind of company they want to be, scale fast, and maintain long-term defensibility.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few months, you’ve likely heard about ChatGPT or one of its competitors and how AI writing tools are revolutionizing the wild world of blogging. But, is it something you should use for your blog? In this post, we’ll explore how to write a blog post using AI – the right way.

And, before you come at me, I should state I’m a writer that makes a living from creating content every week. I’m not on #TeamAI, but I’m also not exactly on #TeamNoAI either. Hopefully, by the end of this post you’ll understand why I’m writing about blogging with AI at all, and have some ideas of how to use it ethically and correctly for your own content.

What exactly is AI? And what is AI writing software?

TechTarget refers to AI or artificial intelligence as “the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.” By extension, AI writing software is supposed to simulate content written by human writers.

With the use of algorithms, suggestions, and a lot of complicated computerized 1s and 0s, AI writing software should theoretically be able to take a prompt a user gives it, and deliver text content back to the user. The reason it’s causing such a stir in the writing world is that it can generate large bits of text in mere seconds.

What was taking content writers hours to complete can be created without breaking a sweat. Of course, that’s not to say what is generated is accurate, and not even necessarily great content. However, as I’ve played with several different AI writing tools at this point, I have to admit it is certainly impressive what the different software can spit out.

What can AI accomplish?

I think that what AI can accomplish depends largely on your goals. The different functions I’ve seen AI writing tools perform include, but aren’t limited to:

• Writing first-draft intros and conclusions for blog posts
• Generating a list of blog topics to write about
• Creating different heading and title options for blog posts
• Summarizing the points of a blog or article, or even just a section of the text for a better understanding
• Generating product descriptions for ecommerce stores
• Writing entire blog posts, articles, essays, poems, and even songs
• Analyzing the tone to determine if a block of text is professional, casual, funny, or depressing
• Creating landing pages for websites
• Writing social media posts to promote content, ideas, and views
• Generating ideas for videos, podcast episodes, and other types of content
• Brainstorm content marketing ideas
• Writing ad copy
• Answer questions (albeit not necessarily factual in its response)
• Breakdown complicated ideas into easier-to-digest ones, or beef up generic content with SAT words (For example, WordHero’s “Explain It To A Child” and “Explain It Like a Professor” functions)

Of course, this is only for the actual writing portion of blogging. I’ve seen so many tutorials and articles expressing various methods of using AI tools for everything from creating complementary YouTube videos for blog posts to generating AI artwork.

Since this article is about how to write a blog post using AI, I’ll do my best to keep my focus on that. So, is it possible for a blogger or content creator to use AI writing tools to create high-quality content? Let’s first take a look at the ethical considerations.

Ethical considerations of writing blog posts with AI

Aside from the ethical considerations related to carbon emissions generated because of the computing power AI tech is causing, some people look at using AI to write blog posts as straight-up plagiarism.

I spoke with SEO and copywriting expert Ryan Brock who is the Chief Solution Officer for DemandJump. He said whether we like it or not, Chat GPT, and all these other AI writing tools are just plagiarism. Period.

In his opinion, it scrapes the internet and then repackages it in a slightly different structure and gives it back to you. He says no matter how you look at it, “It’s plagiarism and that’s just not cool.”

He went on to say by scraping other people’s content, you’re not providing any new value to anyone. That’s not how you build trust factor if you’re trying to establish yourself as a thought leader (or if you’re trying to sell something).

On the flip side of things, Ryan admitted that for answering basic questions that are evergreen and don’t need a lot of fact-checking, it would help someone come up with ideas and break down basic concepts faster. But to actually use that in a blog post he says is doing more harm than good in the long run.

He’s not alone in this sentiment.

Joyce O’Day wrote an article back in July 2022 that basically said if you’re using AI writing tools, the content isn’t yours. She said, “All published content — popular or academic — that utilizes artificial intelligence should be appropriately labeled with the name of the AI software listed as a co-author. Otherwise, authors are taking credit for content that is not their intellectual property, which is plagiarism.”

The Guardian reported, “The use of AI tools to generate writing that can be passed off as one’s own has been dubbed ‘AIgiarism’ by the American venture capitalist Paul Graham, whose wife, Jessica Livingston, is one of the backers of OpenAI.”

I’ve seen many copywriters and content creators state in online forums such as Reddit, as well as within Facebook Groups and on LinkedIn that the act of simply pulling content from AI software is not ethical. To make matters worse, in many cases, depending on the complexity of the subject, it could be generating completely false information.

While every writing solution I’ve come across has stated it’s not responsible for the accuracy of the text that is generated, I’m not sure everyone takes the time to fact-check the content that is given to them. In fact, I personally know of a few people that have turned in shoddy work that needed to be corrected because they relied more on AI software than their own common sense. Needless to say, they lost work as a result.

Some content writers are leaning heavily into AI

While using AI for writing may not be seen as completely ethical, it’s no secret that a lot of freelancers are leaning heavily into it for content creation. One such freelance writer that is getting her fair share of flack for this opinion is “Fiverr Millionaire” and author of the book “Freelance Your Way to Freedom,” Alexandra Fasulo. The self-proclaimed Freelance Fairy believes that AI is the way of the future and she has stated she is glad it’s making waves in the world.

In fact, she recently took to Instagram to discuss Fiverr’s new category for freelancers dedicated to AI where she discussed freelancers charging to edit ChatGPT-generated articles to earn more money in less time.

At the same time, she’s certain that AI will not replace freelancers altogether. For example, one of the gigs she referenced in a TikTok video was to proofread, fact-check, and add hyperlinks to AI text.

Could edited AI text be the ethical way to produce quality content, but get it done faster and for less money? Perhaps.

I guess the real question we all need to ask ourselves is, where do we draw our ethical line in the sand?

Even Google has walked back its initial statements that it would completely downgrade a website’s search rankings if it used AI. In April 2022 Search Engine Journal reported Google’s John Mueller stated that AI-generated content was considered spam. Then, in January 2023, the publication reported Google is now saying AI content is okay as long as it’s high-quality and helpful to the user.  Perhaps this is because Google is working on an AI platform to compete with ChatGPT, or maybe they just don’t want to turn off all the potential advertisers that are using AI to produce content. Who knows for sure?

What about SEO considerations with using AI writing tools?

While we’re talking Google, let’s consider SEO for a moment. Can you write blog content using AI and have that written content rank in search results?

Based on all the research I’ve done for this post, and people I’ve talked to that are much smarter than I am, the basic answer is yes, but with a major caveat.

You have to add a lot more to the post generated with AI before you can ever hope to rank with it!

In other words, if you copy and paste content generated from your favorite AI writing solution into WordPress (or whatever CMS you’re using), no, you probably won’t rank well for it.

But, if you take that base piece and improve upon it – ahem, make it MUCH better – sure, you can rank with it.

Here are the steps you need to take if getting an AI-generated article to rank well is your goal:

1. Research keywords. Don’t generate the text until you have done a thorough keyword research session.

• While researching keywords, consider your ideal customer, and what they will actually be looking for that could ultimately lead them to your page.
• Consider the questions they are asking and the pain points they are looking to solve and how your product or service can solve them.

2. Come up with article ideas. Go to your favorite AI writing solution and add a simple prompt. For example, let’s assume you’re a personal trainer trying to get more clients in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. Next, we’ll assume you’re trying to rank for Best Personal Trainer in Scottsdale. So in this case, the prompt we’ll input is “Give me 10 article ideas for the Best Personal Trainer in Scottsdale.”

3. Generate an outline. Using one of the prompts, let’s generate an outline for the post. In this case, we’ll use the prompt “10 Reasons to Hire a Personal Trainer in Scottsdale: Benefits and Results” Again we’ll go to our AI writing solution and prompt it to create an outline for a blog post on that topic.

4. Write the post. You have two options at this point and this is where things get tricky.

• Option 1 – You could technically re-prompt your writing software to address each of the points in the outline and create a pretty decent article
• Option 2 – Write the post yourself addressing the outline ideas and add in real examples and testimonials that show off your expertise and authority on the subjects

5. Refine and optimize the post. Edit, and add to the post to make it even better. To do this you can:

• Add an FAQ section to include more of the keywords people are looking for (but don’t keyword stuff the post!)
• Include some images that are optimized with proper Alt Tags and descriptions (Compress the images before loading them into the post to improve page load time!)
• Break up larger paragraphs into easier-to-read shorter paragraphs
• Add more subheads for skimmers
• Include links to authoritative sites where relevant
• Include links to your own blog posts that expand on ideas presented in the post
• Create a solid meta description that tells search engines what the post is about (Don’t forget to use the keyword(s) that you’re trying to rank for in your description!)

6. Publish and promote. It might take some time for your post to start showing up in search engine result pages (SERPs), but you can start sharing it across social media, in your newsletter, and even in forums like Reddit and Quora. Just be careful not to spam!

7. Next, you need to write more posts. One solid blog post doesn’t show off your E-E-A-T! Google released an update in December 2022 that to improve the rating of your quality it’s previous E-A-T guidelines are no longer enough if you hope to win out over your competitors.

• E-A-T “stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.”
• So what is the extra E? Experience!

DemandJump recommends writing around 16 posts centered on the same subject to rank higher than your competitors. They refer to this as a Pillar Based Marketing campaign. It’s similar to Hubspot’s “topic clusters” way of writing which involves writing long-form content about several subtopics related to one central topic.

So in this case, you could go back to step 2 and take all the blog post ideas generated from your AI writing solution and repeat steps 3-7 for all 10 of the ideas it gave you. Then, interlink all of them so they support one another and shout from the digital rooftops that you are an expert on the subject that has authority, trustworthiness and experience to back up your claims online.

5 AI tools that can help you blog better

What tools can you use to help you write your blog posts? There are several different options available. Rather than get into the specific brands (especially since more are coming online every day, it seems), I’ll just share what you should be considering to make your blog post writing easier on you:

• A keyword research tool
• An AI writing tool – preferably one that does more than write a paragraph. Look for one that can give you ideas for:
  • Headers
  • Meta descriptions
  • Content briefs
  • Email subjects
  • Videos
  • Blog topics
  • Blog post outlines, etc.
• A spelling and grammar checker
• A plagiarism detection tool
• A graphics and/or image generation tool

How to write a blog post using AI

So how do you ethically write a blog post using AI? The most basic answer is: Don’t copy and paste AI-generated text verbatim. So what if you can get 2,000 words written in a matter of seconds? Even with different prompts for different sections of a full post, I wouldn’t recommend slapping it all together and calling it complete.

The better way, and the more ethical way, is to perhaps use it as a means to improve my workflow and break through writer’s block.

That is what I do when the cursor on my Google Doc blinks at me longer than I like. I will throw a random prompt or two in just to get the creative juices flowing.

From there, go and do your own research and craft a message that actually delivers value. I will say that using this method has saved me a lot of time and energy because as someone who pumps out a lot of content, it’s easy for me to hit a wall and simply not know what to say next. So, having writing solutions that can inspire content ideas is helpful.

Then again, if I’m really stumped and don’t know where to go next with a post, I also go to sites like Neil Patel’s Answer the Public, AlsoAsked, and even DemandJump to get insights into what people are actually searching for online about a variety of subjects. In the case of one of my clients, when they get lost for content creation ideas, they go to the users and ask them what they want to know more about and then we create content campaigns around that.

All this to say, I do see AI as a fun tool for busting through writer’s block and inspiring new ideas.

And, it’s great for coming up with blog post ideas if you’re stumped for what to cover next on your website.

Conclusion

We’ve covered a lot in this post, but my biggest hope is that I’ve convinced you not to just blindly use AI writing apps to spit out a bunch of low-quality content. Your readers and customers deserve better than that. Sure, use all the tools you want to speed up the process and eliminate writer’s block. But, don’t rely on it so heavily that you can’t tell where the AI writing assistant ends and your authenticity begins.

There is definitely a place for AI. And, I’m all for using it to improve your content writing process. From here, I would recommend checking out as many tools as you want. Take advantage of every free trial you can find and play and test to your heart’s content. Then, come back, and sit down to draft a real strategy that will actually convert. Happy blogging!

If you’re wondering how to do social media for your business and think you need a roadmap to navigate the ins and outs of today’s social media landscape, you’re in the right place.

Use this guide to position your venture for success on the social platforms where your customers spend their time. 

Let’s get started.

The discussion about social media for small businesses used to be simpler. It revolved around a few social networks, which had differences that were easy to parse. Instagram equaled pictures; YouTube equaled videos. “Facebook? It’s the one with opposable thumbs.” 

Social media platforms have climbed out of their primitive goop and evolved from simple organisms to complex forms. And, despite the vast landscape of social media, platforms are evolving to look more and more alike.

Live video? Sure — on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest and Twitter.

Yet no single map precisely navigates the landscape of more than one platform. It’s worth it to take the time to do it right, though — by being authentic, offering content your audience values, and building relationships with your customers and prospects.

Social media marketing can generate returns like nothing else can.

You won’t go viral with your first post. And you shouldn’t expect to boom on every platform simultaneously. But the payoffs are life-changing for those small business owners who learn how to do social media the right way.

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Simply put, social media marketing is the process of sharing content (photos, videos and text) on different social media channels, where it’s viewed by the public. It’s an extension of your digital marketing efforts.

At the core of social media for small businesses is the opportunity to connect with new and existing customers and build your sphere of influence through those outlets.

Central to your success with social media marketing is your customers’ and prospects’ ability to find value in what you have to offer.

Mindset: You have to earn people’s attention on social media; no one owes it to you, and they won’t pay attention unless something is in it for them.

Your audience’s default is to do nothing.

Their lives were fine before you arrived.

Their lives will be fine after you go away.

Your goal is to help them feel enough excitement about your pitch to overcome that inertia.

— Wes Kao (@wes_kao) December 13, 2022

By learning how to do social media in a way that provides clear value to your customers and prospects, you can::

1. Establish expertise. When you share your knowledge freely and display your expertise on social media, you build more than just a following — you create an audience that remembers you as a thought leader in your industry.
2. Build brand awareness and audience. You already undertake a wide variety of brand awareness tactics routinely. Social media marketing is just the latest evolution of setting up a booth at industry events and sharing your elevator pitch.
3. Drive funnel and website traffic. Sharing a valuable freebie or new product announcement that interests your target audience can generate clicks to drive traffic to your funnel, selling your products and services.
4. Be remembered. Attention is a powerful currency, and attention from social media marketing results in you being remembered as the “it” person for what you offer.
5. See conversions. Ultimately, these activities all lead to the same place: conversions.

While a business’s ultimate goal is sales, social media marketing can also result in other powerful indirect conversions:

• Referrals. Someone who’s never used your services but remembers you as “the X person” will be quick to recommend you.
• Industry elevation. Being included in industry publications and round-ups won’t drive sales directly but are a fantastic way to reach an even larger audience.

Exercise: Look for examples of successful social media marketing from brands that you buy from. Can you identify the purpose behind one of their social posts? Start to pull back the curtain on social media marketing.

Bottom line: Always remember why you’re sharing. Learning how to do social media to reap its benefits rests on sharing with a clear purpose in mind.

Using social media marketing as a funnel

Social media marketing unlocks a spectrum of possibilities for your business — both positive and negative. And no, I’m not talking about negative comments.

This is an important realization: You don’t own your social media channels, either the content published there or your followers. Social media accounts live on borrowed land, and you could always lose access to what you’ve built there. Every single business still needs a website.

Always treat social media as a funnel that leads back to your owned content.

Vine disappeared overnight in 2016 (though it might return). Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts get mistakenly suspended. Instagram and Facebook accounts get hacked and held for a hefty ransom. TikTok has been banned altogether by a (potentially growing) list of countries.

Social media marketing is a way to explode your brand awareness, but small businesses should continue the conversation off of the page.

The benefits of social media marketing are exciting, but if you don’t enter the jungle with clear expectations you’ll quickly get discouraged.

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Setting realistic expectations

On any given social network sit countless abandoned profiles from creators who gave up on their social media marketing strategy, leaving their accumulated audience, followers and invested time to collect dust.

The most common mistake? Not accounting for the buy-in period of sweat equity that social media marketing requires. 

As a Pinterest marketer, I’ve seen countless creators loftily declare “flags at half-mast — Pinterest is dead!” They abandon their strategy, making a dire miscalculation: it takes months for Pinterest to even index your pins for search results.

Exercise: Research how long growth takes on the social channels you’re pursuing.

@cherylporterdiva It’s #vocalwarmup time! #vocalexercise #fyp #cherylportervocalcoach #vocalcoach ♬ original sound – Cheryl Porter | Vocal Coach

Give your social media strategy time

There’s no hard figure for how long it takes to build an audience on social media, but as a rule of thumb:

Don’t start executing a social media strategy on any platform if you’re not committed to at least a year of work.

Give yourself time to:

• Learn the ins and outs of making quality content.
• Nurture a real, genuine relationship with viewers and earn quality followers.
• Upskill your graphic design, video editing or whatever skills the platform demands.

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Should you spend money on social media marketing?

Part of the allure of social media has long been the price tag: free. Minus your time and the resources used to develop quality content, of course. Those resources are especially hefty, though, to an entrepreneur juggling all their daily responsibilities while exploring how to do social media for the first time.

Small businesses can make three main forms of financial investment in social media marketing:

• Paid ads
• Social media management
• Software

Social media ads

Ads can seem like a social media marketing hack: spend some money and see your reach skyrocket. But they aren’t the solution for every product, service or small business.

“Paid ads aren’t a magic solution where you spend money and immediately get sales,” warns marketer Ravi Davda. “It must be done properly, but it’s a way to be seen and drive traffic rapidly, rather than counting solely on organic methods.”

So, how do you know if you’re ready for social media ads?

Social media ads specialist Joe Brady shared this advice:

“When you have a proven offer with positive reviews, that’s when you’re ready to pursue paid ads. You don’t want to run ads for something that’s not been proven. Otherwise, you won’t know if it’s the ads that are the problem or what you’re selling is not in demand.”

Social media management

You can hire social media managers, sometimes also referred to as ghostwriters or freelance content creators, to create and publish content on your behalf.

You can hire help that’s:

• Platform-specific, such as a Twitter manager.
• Content-specific, such as hiring a short-form video content creator.

Note: This is not to be confused with an influencer, who would create content for your account and post it on their own social media profiles.

LinkedIn ghostwriter Renate Linnenkoper shared this insight:

“It’s easy to end up spending hours producing social media content instead of actually having the time to find new clients. Outsourcing your social media content creation is a great way to attract dream clients to your profile through storytelling content without having to rely on paid ads.”

Both of these financial investments save time, but there’s also another option that fits every budget.

Editor’s note: The experts at GoDaddy’s Digital Marketing Services can help you attract and manage your customers with targeted social ad and email campaigns — and measure your success.

Free social media management tools

Behind every social media marketing strategy is a host of systems and tools that save time.

Building a social media presence takes consistency, and that’s best achieved using a content calendar and scheduling tools.

A few popular social media management tools include:

• Sprout Social for scheduling, analytics, engagement and account management.
• Free native schedulers within the different social channels.
• Collaborative software such as Airtable, Notion or Trello to help visualize your social media content calendar and plan out social media campaigns.

Don’t worry about picking specific tools from the get-go; instead, reference this list once you’ve picked which social media channels you’ll focus on.

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Despite their overlaps, each social media channel has unique strengths.

An effective social media strategy weighs the strengths of each social network and looks at what type of content thrives there.

Ask yourself these questions as you evaluate the best social media channel(s) for your business:

• Who is my target customer, and where do they spend their time?
• Do I prefer to write instead of sharing visuals?
• What content will I routinely share?

Let’s see which platform is your smartest starting point.

LinkedIn

Post content on LinkedIn providing value and showing that you’re a reliable source of information on your given subject, and the recommendations will start to come in.

Sound too easy?

As personal branding specialist Jessie van Breugel puts it, “Treat LinkedIn as your job for six months and you’ll never be out of work again.” Jessie has used his account to grow his email list and position himself as a go-to source on personal branding.

Important: That translates to building your own personal account, not your company’s LinkedIn page.

LinkedIn roll-call:

• Content type: Text-based content with optional photos or videos; plus live video.
• Content style: Can be polished, relating to your small business, or can be personal and casual, relating to your lifestyle.
• Unique opportunity: Instead of just creating fresh content for yourself every day, you can grow your network by simply engaging with content from others (like this). 

Pinterest

Plot twist: Pinterest’s actually not a social network.

Pinterest is a search engine where users look for answers to their queries. When a user enters a term in the search bar, they’re directed to images or videos (called pins) that link back to the websites of bloggers, brands and small businesses.

As a Pinterest specialist, my Pinterest account reaches millions of people per month, which has driven website traffic, brought in new clients, and grown my email list.

The opportunities are enormous, but Pinterest isn’t the ideal platform for every small business owner. Businesses with a lot of quality links on their website (products, blog posts, etc.) are going to see the most success.

Pinterest roll-call:

• Content type: Visual content, either static or video; plus live video on Pinterest.
• Content style: Seasonal, informational and lifestyle.
• Unique opportunity: Longevity. Content on Pinterest lasts for years, not days.

Related: The entrepreneur’s guide to Pinterest marketing

TikTok

TikTok is the adolescent of the social media family, but there’s an audience there for all demographics. In 2021, it became the most visited website in the world, but do you have the type of content to grow your business on TikTok?

In order to answer yes, you must be prepared to produce a lot of content focused on the same topic. 

SEO specialist Kate Smoothy, who has amassed some 19,000 TikTok followers and uses the platform to grow her email list and client base, shared this advice:

“You don’t have to be focussed on one type of content on TikTok, but you do need to be focused on your niche. I would actually encourage creators to try lots of different types of content to find what their audience likes best! But stay in your lane.”

@webhivedigital You can pay a lot of money for SEO tools but you don’t need to. Some of the best SEO tools are free! #seo #searchengineoptimisation #digitalmarketing #marketingtips #seotipsandtricks ♬ original sound – Kate Smoothy | Websites & SEO

TikTok roll-call:

• Content type: Short-form video, or static content with a video or audio element, accompanied by text; plus live video.
• Content style: Trending, informational, lifestyle or entertainment.
• Unique opportunity: Virality and quick growth potential.

Instagram

Open Instagram today and you’ll notice a very different type of content than you used to see pre-2020. Once a social network for hyper-curated photos, Instagram is “no longer just a square photo-sharing app.”

Small business owners can now reach new customers and clients through photos (posts), permanent videos (reels), disappearing videos, text or images (stories) and direct messages.

Most platforms have a direct messaging feature, but Instagram is one of the social media platforms where this feature really shines.

Charlotte Brand uses Instagram to find new clients for her content marketing business, and shared this advice for new small businesses joining the platform:

“Instagram is FULL of marketing potential for all types of small businesses, but when it comes to growing your account, you have to focus on the right metrics. Don’t worry about likes and followers too much; instead, focus on building a community and providing valuable content for your audience.”

Charlotte noted that sharing on Instagram stories provides personal, human connection like no other social network. Users watch stories as much or even more than they scroll the home feed, which means that casual and uncurated access to connect with your audience is uncapped.

Instagram roll-call:

• Content type: Photos, short-form videos and disappearing content; plus live video.
• Content style: Informative, lifestyle or entertainment.
• Unique opportunity: Business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, specifically in stories.

Related: How to sell on Instagram

YouTube

Like Pinterest, YouTube is actually a search engine, and the content you share there has an incredible shelf life: videos sit in search results for years.

Video marketing specialist Doug Dibert, Jr., has been using video marketing since 2005 and says that YouTube’s big opportunity lies in the fact that there’s more demand than supply.

“Imagine you discovered Google My Business before anyone else did. You’re getting all the benefits and your competition is baffled as to why you’re winning,” he says. “That’s what YouTube is right now for businesses.”

Google owns YouTube, which means that videos also get prime placement across Google search results.

The platform also offers a special direct monetization opportunity, where accounts (called channels) that meet certain engagement thresholds are eligible to directly monetize their content.

YouTube roll-call:

• Content type: Video, traditionally longer-form but also short-form (YouTube Shorts); plus live video.
• Content style: Informative, lifestyle or entertainment.
• Unique opportunity: Visibility across both YouTube and Google, and high demand for content.

Related: How to get more customers with YouTube

Facebook

Facebook might be an old social media platform, but it still has an enormous and diverse audience, across all demographics.

Not only does this present small business owners with many potential leads, but users are also actively turning to businesses’ Facebook pages for information like reviews, business hours and direct communication through Facebook messenger.

Arthur Freydin is an entrepreneur with 10 years of Facebook marketing experience and these insights into the power of the platform:

“The platform allows business owners to communicate updates, new products, discounts, opening hours, customer testimonials, and much more on a platform with a very wide audience.”

Business owners can market their business through a Facebook business page or in Facebook groups using their personal account. It also has an incredibly robust ad system.

Facebook roll-call:

• Content type: Text, images or video; plus live video.
• Content style: Photos, videos and short-form video content as well as business page features consisting of reviews, business hours and direct messaging.
• Unique opportunity: The ability to reach your target market through paid ads (called “boosting”). 

Related: How to use Facebook Messenger for business

Twitter

Twitter is the fastest-moving social media platform, where a post (called a tweet) has the shortest lifespan when compared to the other platforms we’ve looked at .. a mere 23 minutes.

But a post on Twitter also requires the least amount of work. Currently, a tweet has a limit of 280 characters. That might change, but the concept won’t: tweets aren’t meant to be profound works of art.

The nature of the platform rewards short, spicy and conversation-provoking content, which makes it ideal for the big-picture part of your brand messaging.

Samson and Cecilia Hollmerus, who together run a small business offering travel coaching and community, use Twitter to build brand awareness:

“We use Twitter for our top-of-funnel content, and our aim is to create brand awareness for our travel community and courses.”

9 Insider travel tips from experienced globetrotters:

That will save you:

• Time
• Money
• Energy

Without compromising quality for your upcoming trip pic.twitter.com/vcbZDgixS3

— Samson | Spontaneous Backpackers (@spontaneousbkpk) December 25, 2022

Twitter roll-call:

• Content type: Short-form text, can include images and videos; plus live video.
• Content style: Short, timely and topical.
• Unique opportunity: The size of the stage. Tweet about a trending topic using a hashtag and your words can be seen by tens of thousands of viewers, no matter how many followers you have.

Back to top

You’ll find no shortage of tips online about how to use social media — a single TikTok video might flash 15 tips in a matter of seconds.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Follow these five basic steps and you’ll be ready to start creating the kind of social media content that converts.

1. Do your homework

The first step in any successful social media marketing strategy is listening.

See what kinds of accounts are popular in your industry and research:

• Who’s being followed?
• What topics are popular?
• What content is resonating?

Listening might sound passive, but small business influencer Ivana Taylor shared this exercise:

“Make a list of frequently asked questions and answer them. Or, share your secrets, shortcuts and hacks that will help your customers or audience get better at what you do.”

Actively engage in the listening process by:

• Writing down frequently asked questions (FAQ).
• Saving good posts that you see.
• Creating an ongoing idea document.

As you listen and gather content ideas, it’s time to define your social media marketing strategy.

2. Define your strategy

Start defining your social media strategy by answering these questions:

1. Which social media platform will you start with?
2. How many months will you commit to creating content, regardless of results?
3. How often will you post?

Bear in mind your target outcomes.

Target outcomes

What is the goal of each social media post? These goals can cover:

• Sales
• Education
• Authenticity
• Follower growth
• Lead generation
• Brand awareness
• Email list sign-ups
• Display of expertise
• Community engagement
• Data collection 

A well-rounded social media strategy would encompass all of these outcomes, even the ones that might seem less valuable, like authenticity.

Branding studio CEO Shana Sanders shared this insight into how authenticity generates more aligned leads:

“Be authentic with your social media marketing. Authenticity helps the audience see themselves being in the environment of working with you.”

Focus on creating content that covers all of these target outcomes in turn. Keep them front of mind as you’re creating social media content.

@megemikoart (shop link in my bio) #trans #elliotpage #transgender #nonbinary #lgbtqia #pridemonth #protecttranskids #lgbtsmallbusiness #fyp #comingout ♬ A Moment Apart – Hannah Stater

Add value

Anyone can post on social media, but not everyone turns their social media posts into conversions.

The biggest culprit? Failing to add value. Repurposing other small business marketing content, like sharing a link to a press release, is a losing approach.

Create content that’s:

• Funny
• Unique
• Helpful
• Engaging
• Entertaining
• Inspirational
• Conversational
• Thought-provoking
• Community-oriented

You already have the ideas for your value-driven social media marketing; you just need to identify them.

Business and marketing strategist Annelise Worn shared this advice:

“Ask yourself: ‘what does my ideal client need to know, think and believe about me and my offer in order to say yes?’ Write them all down. Categorize them into three buckets. That’s your content.”

Exercise: Hold a 15-minute brainstorming session where you write down every single answer to this question.

Identify your target market

Before you can create content that speaks to your audience, you have to know who your audience is.

Consider both demographics and psychographics, including:

• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Struggles
• Education level
• Income or budget

Getting into the demographic information can start to feel overly technical, but copywriting specialist and professor Jasmin Alić, who’s written for Fortune 500 companies, shares this advice:

“Every time you post on social media as your brand, remember you’re speaking to humans. Not businesses and robots — you’d be surprised how many business owners don’t understand this concept.”

Exercise: Just like an actor breaking the fourth wall, look the camera dead in the eyes and speak directly to the viewer. Use “you,” not “you guys.” Likewise, say “I,” not an anonymous “we.”

When your social media marketing converts and a viewer is ready to become a follower or purchase your products or services, it’ll be the act of a single human. Speak to them.

Related: How to update your business for changing demographics

3. Create shareable content

After you’ve defined your social media marketing goals and understand your audience, you must reach viewers with content that engages them.

Digital marketer Yogesh Kumar simplifies the type of content that gets shared online to just two words: “People share creative and relevant content with their followers.”

Exercise: Think about your own behavior as a social media user. What type of content do you deem share-worthy?

I’ve edited 3+ million words.

Here are 8 common content writing mistakes,

and how to fix them:

— Erica Schneider (@ericasmyname) May 23, 2022

Related: How to create content calendars

4. Engage with your audience

Here’s one of the golden rules of social media marketing:

It’s not about you; it’s about them.

A relationship between two entities cannot be built if one party speaks about themselves into a megaphone. Your followers must be the focus of all of your social media marketing efforts, and engaging with them is an important part of this rule.

• Ask questions.
• Answer questions.
• Respond to every comment.
• Thank viewers for sharing their thoughts.
• Engage one-on-one in direct messages (DM) with viewers when appropriate.

Lyssa Jackson, instructor and program manager at LinkedIn, shared this insight:

“Direct messaging is for starting conversations and for building our like, know and trust factor. Even if you don’t make a sale or book a call right away, approaching DMs with a relationship-first mindset will open your network if you’re clear about the problem you solve.”

Exercise: Make time to send followers or peers in your audience thoughtful messages (if it’s appropriate on the platform).

5. Measure success

What does success look like on social media?

Consider these key metrics:

• Followers and views. These numbers give a sense of reach.
• Engagement. Are people commenting on your content?
• Shares. What content is motivating your followers to share it?
• Clicks. Which posts are driving traffic to your website?
• Action. Once they’re on your turf, are they converting?

For tangible measurements, look at platform analytics to access data from within each platform.

For intangibles, look at the quality of community you’re building and how qualified your inbound leads are.

Back to top

Conclusion and next steps

You’re making a wise investment by learning how to use social media marketing to grow your small business.

Instead of opening a brick-and-mortar establishment and waiting for potential leads to walk in, you’re going out into the world and finding them.

• Start small.
• Experiment.
• Test your content.
• Try out different platforms.
• Play with the timing of your posts.
• Treat every social media post as an opportunity to improve.

Watch your content evolve. You have no idea how your business might evolve with it.

Develop a quality, successful social media marketing strategy that’s an agent of your overall marketing goals, and your business will never be the same.

As a small business owner, ever ask yourself why you’re investing so much time and energy on your YouTube content when you’re already spread thin by all of the things you have to do in running your business? Simple: small business creators get more customers with YouTube!

Why is video important for my business?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a video worth to your business? The potential to dramatically increase your chances of getting more customers, according to recent YouTube statistics from Google:

• 68% of YouTube users watch videos to make purchasing decisions.
• More than 46% of shoppers will potentially buy from a new brand they discovered through YouTube.
• 70% of YouTube viewers bought something from a brand they saw on YouTube.

Those staggering numbers show that YouTube videos greatly influence consumers’ buying decisions. And since only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube, if you take the time to create and upload videos, you’ll essentially stand out from 9 out of 10 of your competitors.

Why do I need a YouTube channel?

More than 90% of consumers say they’ve discovered new products and brands on YouTube. Having a YouTube channel allows your business to capture the interest of those consumers when they’re actively exploring their options.

As the second-largest search engine behind Google, YouTube is brilliant in that it realizes the power of giving people options. When viewers are empowered to choose what they want to watch, they pay attention to the content because it matters to them. If you create educational, entertaining or thought-provoking videos, you have a better chance of viewers actively engaging with your brand. Those engaged viewers, in turn, enable you to make more sales with YouTube.

4 things to include to get more customers on YouTube

When building a YouTube channel, there are a few important elements that deserve your attention:

1. Channel banner.
2. Important links.
3. Welcome video and description.
4. Channel sections and playlists.

1. Channel banner

Think of the channel banner like your billboard on YouTube. This sits atop your channel and can be used to welcome viewers, set expectations for the types of videos you upload, and even drive clicks to a specific page. On Bigger Better Biz, we use the channel banner to drive downloads of our free marketing resources.

2. Important links

When customizing your YouTube channel, you can add important links to your other digital properties. Be sure to use them because they show on your channel banner as well as in your About tab. On Bigger Better Biz, we link to our free download, marketing community signup, LinkedIn and Facebook.

3. Welcome video and description

The welcome video (also known as the channel trailer) gives new (yet to subscribe) visitors to your channel a brief idea of the type of content you’re posting. Use both your video and its accompanying description to instruct viewers to watch your other videos and subscribe to the channel. This is a great way to get more followers on YouTube.

On Bigger Better Biz, we use the welcome video and description to welcome new viewers, outline our video topics, and prompt them to subscribe to the channel.

4. Channel sections and playlists

Your YouTube channel homepage allows for up to 12 sections. Each of these sections can contain live stream content, video playlists, or other channels with which you collaborate. On Bigger Better Biz, our sections include:

• Starting your small business
• How to Google My Business
• YouTube Shorts
• Popular uploads
• Free marketing strategy coaching clips
• Digital marketing tools
• Small business questions

You don’t need to use all 12 sections, but having three or more sections makes your channel look established and robust to new viewers.

How YouTube can help you gain more customers

To understand the opportunity you have with YouTube, we first have to dive into consumer psychology and take a look at micro-moments.

What are micro-moments?

Google coined the term “micro-moments” back in 2015. Think with Google puts it best when it describes micro-moments:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped. In these moments, consumers’ expectations are higher than ever. The powerful computers we carry in our pockets have trained us to expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are looking for when we are looking. We want things right, and we want things right away.

Simply put, a micro-moment is a moment in time when your potential customers need to:

• Know something.
• Go somewhere.
• Do something.
• Buy something.

In these impactful moments, consumers are both exploring and evaluating their options (known as the Messy Middle) and they turn to search engines like YouTube to make more educated decisions. Recent research from Google shows that:

• 75% of shoppers used a Google product like YouTube in the past week to help with their shopping.
• 70% of shoppers are open to learning about products on YouTube from brands.
• More than 90% of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.
• Over 50% of shoppers say they used online video while shopping in-store.

How to leverage micro-moments to get more customers with YouTube

Watching videos in their micro-moment helps consumers compare their options and make better-informed buying decisions. That’s not to say that all of your videos should only focus on pushing your products or services, though. Because consumers in micro-moments are both exploring and evaluating, you want to consider the role video will play in your overall marketing strategy.

What role will video play in your marketing strategy?

Before I create a video for Bigger Better Biz, I like to jot down my objective for the video on a sticky note and make sure it’s in clear view as I record. Of course, you’re using video in your marketing to get more customers with YouTube, but each video can have a different objective or goal that ultimately leads to making more sales with YouTube.

Building brand awareness with YouTube

To attract customers, you need to show them your products and services. In the case of building brand awareness, you’re making videos with a goal that consumers will recognize or recall your brand or offerings. To build brand awareness, you might create the following types of videos:

Growing loyalty with YouTube

Once potential customers know about your brand, you want to bolster their loyalty so they are more likely to recommend your business to others. To grow loyalty, you might create videos including:

• Customer testimonials
• Case studies
• Thought leadership and advice

Driving sales with YouTube

Last, but not least, you can use YouTube to drive online or offline sales. This is where you turn on the boosters and promote your offerings. It might feel a little shameless, but if 90% of consumers are discovering things to buy on YouTube, it’s in your best interest to sell with video.

Here’s an example of a recent video promoting a new marketing program we developed for small business owners:

Note in the video how I speak to the viewers’ pain points of feeling overwhelmed with endless marketing options and provide them with a solution: our monthly marketing success plan.

If you’re not ready for a direct sales video, then you might consider uploading:

• Origin story videos
• Product highlight videos
• DIY videos
• Unboxing videos

Don’t let the lists above overwhelm you, but use them as inspiration. It’s easy to get sidetracked with fresh ideas when recording videos, so I suggest you start by choosing one objective. Write your objective on a notepad and add two to three bullet points on what you want to cover in your video. As you make your video, consult your note and make sure you’re staying true to your objective.

Related: Top 5 videos you need to be adding to YouTube to grow your sales

Where do I share my YouTube videos?

Once you publish your video on your YouTube channel, spread the word right away because the more views and watch time you gain with your new release, the more YouTube rewards you by suggesting your video to viewers outside of your network. With that in mind, here are some simple strategies to get more eyes on your YouTube videos.

Embed your video in a blog post

If blogging is a part of your content marketing strategy, you will want to write a blog post to showcase every video you upload to YouTube. Why? Because by writing a blog post and embedding your new video in the body of your blog, you’re marrying YouTube and Google for an SEO boost.

Pro tip: Consider embedding a playlist link in your blog posts, so your viewers continue watching your other videos.

Share your video in your email marketing campaigns

When you release a new video that provides value to your email subscribers, send out an email marketing campaign to let them know. If you time it right, you can schedule your video to publish when your email campaign hits the inbox to demonstrate a strong initial demand for your video content.

Related: 13 email marketing tips to captivate customers and drive sales

Share your video on social media

I’m sure you’re always on the prowl for new content to share on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. By promoting your YouTube videos via social media platforms, you’re spreading the word to social media users who might have never known your YouTube channel existed. If your video content is engaging enough, you have a good chance of winning new subscribers.

Pro tip: Be sure to add short, informative descriptions that motivate social media users to click the video links.

Start leveraging YouTube to get more customers

We’ve established that YouTube is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal because it influences consumer buying decisions. When potential customers find themselves in micro-moments, they turn to search engines like YouTube to explore and evaluate their options, and the stats show that more than 90%t of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.

Be deliberate with your objectives before recording your videos, and consider modeling some of the examples I listed above. Once you publish your video to YouTube, be sure to share it as soon as you can to get as many views as possible right when it’s live for the world to see.

I’ve given you the inspiration, now put in the perspiration!

Over 4.2 billion people actively engage with social media daily, a number that’s doubled in less than five years. Each of those users spends over 2 hours a day on social media channels. There’s never been a better opportunity to build meaningful customer relationships, get your brand in the spotlight, and drive sales.

No Plan, No Can Do

Social media seems like an easy arena to conquer. However, as with everything else in business, leaping in without a plan is the easiest way to doom your business to failure. Remember, even free social media options require you to invest time and energy, so it’s critical you have a focused plan to make the most of it.

You should be focusing on arenas that will deliver a clear return on that investment. You don’t want to aim for a platform because it’s ‘cool’, but rather because your target market hangs out there and you can meaningfully engage with them through it. Start out with some clear goals built around what will have a real impact on your brand, and construct them using the SMART system. If you already have a social media presence, now’s the time to check in with what they’re achieving for you and what is yielding the best results.

It’s always a good idea to keep on top of what the competition is doing, too. While directly copying them would be a no-no, knowing how they’re reaching customers, where it’s delivering, and learning from their mistakes is a fantastic way to hit the ground running.

Use the Right Channels

One of the worst social media marketing mistakes a small business can do is chasing trendy over what’s relevant to your consumers. Where are your audience spending their time? It doesn’t matter if Gen Z is all about TikTok if you’re selling to retirees!

Don’t just assume based on what you feel or the media says, either. Instead, turn to meaningful metrics that give real demographic information on who’s using networks, how they engage with them, and what’s working for marketing there. Don’t forget to add your own market research to this, either! It’s good to have a range of social media channels for your brand, but you also don’t want to split your efforts too far and end up wasting them. If your analytics tell you your customers are focusing on specific channels, use that to your advantage.

Know Who Buys Your Brand

Talking about which, without meaningful data under your belt, you lose the greatest feature of social marketing- the ability to micro-target those who are most interested in what you offer. Start by meaningfully compiling both your target market, and the niche target audiences within it.

Make sure you’re using the on-platform metrics and analysis to bring in further data, and dig deep. What does your audience like? What do they look like? Do they come from specific demographics and locations? This will help you keep your budget lean and your focus tight. Don’t neglect the power of buyer personas for this, either.

Build Relationships Where It Counts

Modern marketing has veered away from the older ‘hard sell’ model. You shouldn’t be beating customers over the head with products alone. You want to build meaningful relationships that establish your brand as a key part of their lifestyle, too.

Who are you as a brand? What do you stand for? Are you regularly engaging with the people who engage with you? Fans sharing and liking content, or commenting on it, is one of the best ways to rise in social algorithms, get organic traction, and gain exposure.

Don’t forget to onboard relevant authorities within your brand niche, either. Whether you’re building meaningful relationships on specialist social media sites (Vampr, for example, connects musicians globally) or seeking out influencers in your genre. Micro-influencers and nano-influencers have become an increasingly important part of the social media marketing landscape, and are often well within the budget of even the smallest companies.

Likewise, when followers generate content you can use, be it through brand hashtags or contests, you can give them a shout-out and generate goodwill.

Trend Smartly

First up, don’t take this one as an invitation to jump on every viral meme. This can backfire as easily as it can work for you. But you should be paying attention to what is trending, especially within your business niche, and making it work smartly for you. This can help you create content that’s on the ball, relevant, and interesting to your followers.

In the same vein, but thinking broadly, make sure you’re addressing customer’s needs realistically. Insurance products, for example, should be encouraging their market to update as major life stages come- having a baby, say, or retirement. Always look to create content that’s compelling for the interests of your audience.

Create Content Over Genres

Once you’ve found the right social platforms to use, don’t get hung up on one content format. Video is booming, but there’s still a ton of space for written word, infographics, and still imagery. Again, make sure you have analytics and metrics in place to track what’s resonating well with your followers, too.

A/B testing is a technique where you run two pieces of content, or two ads with different copy, against each other and measure their overall performance. When you have a clear winner, refine, test, and tweak against another piece until you find your winning formats.

Overall, social media marketing is an incredibly worthwhile route, even for the smallest of businesses. The keys lie in knowing your market, tracking your efforts through metrics and data analytics, and building meaningful relationships that help boost your brand’s bottom line.

Starting a business is hard work. For many business owners, though, it’s the next step that ends up feeling downright overwhelming: finding customers. With limited budgets for advertising, it can be difficult to figure out which of the advertising heavy hitters to start with, Facebook and Instagram versus Google Ads.

It’s important to note here that both platforms have benefits that complement each other, so it’s a wise idea to consider both platforms when advertising a business. However, it’s understandable that newer business owners may be more hesitant to spend heavily on advertising right away and thus would need to choose one over the other initially.

In this guide, we’ll discuss important steps to take before starting an ad campaign, which businesses benefit most from a particular advertising provider and best practices for Facebook and Instagram Ads versus Google Ads.

Want a quick rundown of the businesses and considerations we’ll be discussing in this article? Here’s a handy table for reference as you read through:

Ready? Let’s go.

4 steps to take before beginning to advertise

Before you start an ad campaign, there are several steps you’ll want to complete regardless of the advertising platform you choose.

1. Set up an online presence

First, you’ll need to make sure that your business is online, with both a website and social media accounts. Attracting potential customers and having nowhere to direct them to would be disastrous. Avoid the awkwardness and get your business online first.

Editor’s note: Need to create a beautiful business site fast? GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing will help you get your business online in no time at all.

If you’re not sure how to get started, these guides will help you out:

2. Optimize your website

Now that you’ve got your business website online, you’ll need to consider website optimization. Driving traffic to your website is only one part of the process. Your website should help to close the sale for your new customers.
Focus on ensuring that you’re including keywords for your business, make sure that you have a clearly stated call-to-action (CTA) and optimize your site so that it’s easy to use and loads quickly.

Related: 10 simple small business SEO tactics that you can do in-house

3. Focus on mobile

In the United States, the average time spent on a smartphone for non-voice activities is 263 minutes (about 4 and a half hours) per day. That is huge! While social media sites are already mobile-friendly, it’s extremely important that your website is ready for mobile users as well.

You’ll want to ensure that your content is consumable via a mobile browser and that your site loads as quickly as possible to keep users looking at your website.

4. Carefully consider your audience

Once you’ve got your social media profiles and website up and running, it’s time to think about the customers you’re trying to attract and how your business fits into specific media types. Facebook/Instagram are primarily visual communication mediums, so social media advertising tends to favor businesses with appealing aesthetics.

Google Ads, on the other hand, are heavily text-based. Ask yourself which advertising type, images/videos or text, would best fit your business and the audience you want to attract.

Facebook and Instagram Ads versus Google Ads

As your business grows, it would certainly be helpful to use both advertising platforms to continue future growth. With that in mind, let’s discuss the strengths of each advertising platform below.

Why should you consider Facebook and Instagram Ads?

With 2.93 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2022, Facebook and Instagram boast an enormous audience. So, to ensure that paid social media ads are seen by relevant audiences, these Meta social media platforms offer robust granularity to allow businesses to target their ideal customers.

Users on social media tend to share their most important life events, from their relationship status to favorite vacation spots and important milestones (graduations, children, weddings, etc). This content allows Facebook and Instagram to categorize users into detailed audience types and serve ads that fit their interests.

Additionally, with Facebook and Instagram being highly visually-based platforms, it’s often easier to immediately catch a user’s eye. Ads on these Meta platforms blend in with other posts in a user’s feed, so while images can be effective advertisements, you may want to consider a GIF or short video to really stand out.

Given the granular, visual nature of Facebook and Instagram advertising, a few examples of businesses that thrive on social media are:

• Clothing companies
• Beauty and skincare
• Food and beverage (for example, restaurants that have strong visual aesthetics and online community)
• Technology providers (hardware, software and services)
• Home goods

Benefits of Facebook and Instagram Ads

Social media is a fantastic method for retargeting potential customers, with a 20% higher retargeting conversion rate vs search engine advertising. It’s also much easier to grab attention quickly, as Facebook and Instagram are heavily image-based.

Additionally, the granularity and audience insights available are second-to-none. Is your product aimed at a younger audience, for example? Facebook and Instagram advertising makes it easy to reach those groups.

Another benefit of social media advertising is that your ads are not dependent on search terms. The ads that you choose to run will display for the intended audience without requiring the user to search for anything.

And finally, the return on investment (ROI) on social media tends to outpace the ROI of other more traditional marketing methods, due to the granularity offered by Facebook and Instagram ad targeting.

Tips for advertising on Facebook and Instagram

Ready to give Facebook and Instagram advertising a try?

Here are a few recommendations on how to be as successful as possible:

1. Brands have 1-2 seconds to grab attention. Therefore, branding and product benefits (emotional or functional) must be clear from the start.
2. Avoid using static content for ads. Gifs or video ads tend to grab interest more readily than images alone.
3. Advertising the same product repeatedly without any refresh is not well-received by customers. Keep your content creative and fresh.
4. Ads that are more informal video creative tend to perform the best (versus heavily-scripted ads).
5. Have a solid call to action (CTA) that leads to your website or ecommerce shop.
6. Keep video ads short, around 15-30 seconds.

Why should you consider Google Ads?

Google is often the first name given when considering online advertisement platforms.

Launched in October 2000, Google’s experience and tenure in the online advertising space is a powerful force to be reckoned with. And, with over 8.5 billion daily searches, Google is in the unique position of being able to serve ads to an audience that is actively searching for information, products and services.

Leveraging their ongoing machine learning tool, RankBrain, Google is constantly learning and figuring out which search results are most useful. This means that ads served through Google’s search network are tailored specifically for audiences most likely to find that advertisement useful.

Businesses that may find Google Ads helpful include:

• Service-based businesses (salons, landscapers, home renovation, etc.)
• Local businesses wanting to appear on “near me” searches (restaurants, hotels, etc.)
• Ecommerce companies
• Dropshipping providers

Benefits of Google Ads

While social media certainly has a large audience segment, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, accounting for a 92% of the market share for all devices. That’s massive.

Because of this massive market share, Google Ads typically offers better lead generation versus social media advertising on its own. With over 100k searches per second, it’s easy to see how Google can get more eyes on your ads.

Additionally, with how the Google advertising network displays, Google ads are highly-targeted towards the location of the person searching.

Tips for advertising on Google Ads

1. Target long-tail keywords when choosing keywords to help your ads better target the desired customers.
2. Use local targeting options if your business or services are only offered regionally.
3. Optimize your website’s landing page to have a strong and clear CTA to entice customers to buy.
4. Plan out a clear business goal for your ads. Google Ads are concise, so you’ll need to plan your ad content around a clear objective.
5. Write an engaging description that corresponds with the content on your landing page. Customers expect to learn more when clicking on an ad, so don’t leave them hanging.

Which platform is right for you?

Each advertising platform has its strengths, so the one you choose to start with will be up to your business’ unique needs. When comparing Facebook and Instagram Ads versus Google Ads, the ways in which the two platforms have grown in distinctive directions can offer clear benefits to all types of businesses. And, as your business continues to grow, these distinctive differences can be used together in order to maximize your business’ potential.

How do you know it’s time for a social media makeover?

• Your social media has no rhyme or reason. It’s kind of … random. You’re spending loads of time posting but it looks bland and gets no engagement. All that effort isn’t translating into much growth or profit.
• You know your brand could look better. Do you ever catch yourself scrolling and daydreaming? Imagining how your brand could look a little bit cooler? You know your brand could look more unified, professional and relevant, but you simply don’t know how to do it, or you can’t afford to hire a designer.
• You’re not on social media. You have a business already established and a website up and running, but you need to get your brand on social media.
• You’re just starting out. Maybe you’re a small business or side hustle, and you want to do it properly on social media, from the get-go.

Whether it’s taking someone’s wardrobe from drab to fab, or transforming dull living spaces into a dream home, everybody loves a good makeover — probably because we like to see people living their best lives.

Your social media channels as an everyday entrepreneur are no different. But giving your brand a social media makeover goes further than just looking good.

Having a powerful presence on social media can help you maintain a competitive edge, setting you up to sell more, and keep your business thriving.

Maintaining a social media account might feel like a productive use of your time, but pottering around aimlessly in the digital space can end up wasting more energy than it generates for your brand.

Social media is supposed to work for you, gaining you leads, fans, subscribers, customers and recognition. The juice has to be worth the squeeze.

We’ve got some ideas to help create the best brand presence you possibly can, to increase your odds out there in the social media jungle.

Armed with this knowledge, we’ll show you a little shortcut to creating professional-looking designs too, in the form of Layout Collections in GoDaddy Studio.

What does a great social media feed look like?

You know those social media accounts that you just love to see popping up on your phone? That’s not by accident. Looking effortlessly attractive as a brand takes some upfront work to build solid foundations.

Brands with great social media feeds typically get at least some of these things right:

• They publish excellent content. It’s inspirational, informative, or entertaining – providing some value to their target audience.

• They have a distinct identity. When it’s done well, you can recognize a brand at a glance before you even read the first word. Their coherent brand identity also differentiates their business space from the personal accounts that are intermingled on your feed.

• They touch on a defined pool of topics. You can’t talk about everything to everyone – so they narrow it down to some recurring themes, centered on their audience, their product, and their values. Where these intersect, is their sweet spot; the conversation they can own.
• There’s a defined cadence. Whether it’s three times a day or three times a week, a brand is more likely to show up in our feeds (and become memorable to its audience) if they have a regular publishing routine. Diligence is rewarded on most algorithms, too!

• They value aesthetics. Brands doing well on social media have quality, well-considered content that makes your eyes happy: think beautiful photos, playful design, popping colors, gorgeous fonts, and eye-catching graphics that elevate a post from a random photo to a work of art. Some of the best brands regard their feed as an ever-evolving work of art.

• Their content is actionable. There’s a clear message telling the reader what they want them to do – whether it’s entering a competition, commenting on a particular post, or signing up for a product or service.
• They create content with mutual benefit in mind. This means either delivering a moment of insight or delight, or creating a chance for the reader to reap some benefit – a discount, a sale, a competition, a lesson, or the chance to gain more information about a topic.

• They engage with customers and other brands (they don’t just post and duck). Popular brands are responding to comments, thanking customers for compliments, or solving simple problems, rather than publishing a piece of content and never interacting with it again. They’re part of like-minded online communities and business networks, engaging with these conversations.
• They engage with current events, trends and memes. Inasmuch as we’re encouraging planning, the brands who are strong on social don’t lock things in months ahead without making space for some spontaneous reactions. Bernie on a chair, anyone?
• They sync with special days, seasons and holidays. In doing this, they’re responding to a world that’s constantly in flux.    

Most of all, brands doing well on social media are the ones who are using their social media channels to help them achieve their business goals.

How do you get started on a social media makeover?

It may seem overwhelming to try and get to the same level as bigger, more established brands, but this is absolutely an attainable goal — and you can do it yourself, without spending money on hiring a designer.

Even if you’re a single person side hustle, looking premium will create that perception of professionalism (nobody needs to know it’s just you and your phone).

Remember that it’s more than a once-off brand revamp: reinventing yourself is actually an essential habit to develop as an entrepreneur. Luckily, it’s something you can get better and better at over time, and the proof of the pudding is in the tasting: growth.

We’re going to show you how to up your game on social media, with some best practice tips combined with stacks of practical know-how. But before we dive into the creative stuff, it’s important to address the reasons behind why you’re doing this. Getting this down before you start redesigning will help you reap both immediate and long-term benefits.

What does a social media makeover involve?

There are five fundamental steps you need to walk through when it comes to pulling off a successful social media makeover, with questions to ask yourself at each stage. Let’s take a closer look:

1. Consider your purpose

• Why are you on social media in the first place? What are you trying to achieve?
• Which platforms are right for you, in terms of your big goals? Remember that you don’t have to be everywhere at once.
• What’s worked/not worked for you in the past? Be honest, and learn from your mistakes — as well as your successes of course.
• What’s your brand really about, beyond profit? How do you want to show up and engage on social media, and how do you want your audience to view you?

2. Set measurable goals

Whether it’s more sales, more leads, more engagement or building a community, set yourself a target and a timeline. This doesn’t have to be too complicated if you’re starting out. Use your best guess as a baseline (100 new subscribers a month, 15% more traffic to the blog via Instagram), and adjust your targets once the data starts rolling in week after week.

Hopefully, your feed will start looking more stylish and coherent, creating an impression of improvement, but make sure your goals are something you can measure directly, to keep you on course and motivated.

The good news is that most social platforms have easy access to basic analytics, for free. You don’t need to get neck-deep in the data, but you do want some objective measure to know if your numbers are moving up or down. This basic data will guide your strategy on an ongoing basis.

3. Find your brand’s unique style (your presence)

Nobody knows your brand better than you. So, what is its personality: bold or classic? Playful or street? The design will ultimately create this impression to new customers.

Luckily, there are 13 different styles to guide you here, so you can choose the one that’s absolutely right for you. Naturally, you can customize your unique brand identity, but it’s useful to start with some guardrails.

Remember, your style is inextricably linked to your audience. It reflects a worldview, and not just a “look.”

Once you have your unique style in mind, take some time to explore all the graphics, logos, images, color palettes, and fonts we have in GoDaddy Stuido. Save your favorites — these will form part of your brand identity kit.

4. Customize templates and layout collections

This is the fun part! Find templates for the formats you’ll be using the most, whether it’s a competition poster or a YouTube thumbnail. We have thousands of designs, grouped by platforms, occasions, and styles.

Layout collections make the process even easier, by offering you a full pack of consistently designed templates across a range of formats and platforms.

Customize templates by applying your brand’s unique graphics, fonts, colors, logo, and images to a professional design.

Find the layout collection that suits your brand best and customize it with your brand’s colors, fonts, logo, graphics, and images.

5. Plan ahead with a content calendar

• Content for a week: Pick a few types of social content that you produce on a regular basis. These could include discussion topics, product features, user showcases, links to your blog, motivational quotes… the options are endless, but narrow it down to keep your brand’s messaging consistent.
• Content for a month: Look at the upcoming month(s) to identify special days, holidays, or cultural moments that might create opportunities to produce relevant content.
• Content for a year: Identify a few key holidays/seasons/events that hold maximum marketing potential for your brand well in advance. Use the time to plan campaigns — a sale, a competition, an event — for maximum impact.

Once you have the basic principles in place by working through this framework, the design process should be more logical, much easier, and — most importantly — more fun than complicated. As an everyday entrepreneur, you’ve got a ton of things on your to-do list.

Creating content shouldn’t be sucking hours out of your day, or hundreds of dollars out of your business account.

Make your brand beautiful

Templates and layout collections make it super easy to create a full social media kit with your unique brand identity: simply add your brand’s fonts, colors, graphics, and images to professionally designed templates.

Our layout collections were created with this exact function in mind, to allow you to develop a consistent library of ready-to-go content, instead of designing from templates one at a time, as the need arises. Remember: the secret to success is to have your brand vision and goals clearly identified before you start.

Now that we’ve broken it down for you, giving your brand a social media makeover doesn’t sound that overwhelming, does it? You’ve got this.

GoDaddy Studio is the perfect tool to help you show up beautifully, and make an impact on social media — every time.

The post Is it time for a social media makeover? appeared first on GoDaddy Blog.

As we all come to terms with the new retail landscape after a global pandemic, it’s definitely worth exploring how to use a sale to get more business. Reducing your prices might be a necessary short-term action, but it shouldn’t reek of desperation.

A good sale is sustainable to your bottom line and welcomed by customers feeling the pinch.

It’s also a great opportunity to remind people that you’re still open for business, as you adjust to a new reality.

How to use a sale to get more business

The sale is a tried and trusted way to promote your business, boost revenue, and make people feel good about their purchase. Ultimately, everyone likes to feel like a winner when they walk away with a bargain.

Planned well, they’re a great short-term booster to:

• Spike interest
• Gain customers
• Get some product moving

All of these can be as valuable for motivation as they are for your bottom line.

Why launching a sale is important for small business

For small businesses, a strategic sale can be the gentle nudge to convert a new customer from “I’m interested” to “yeah, might as well.”

If you’re just starting out and trying to gain a foothold in a crowded market, you can start with a tempting introductory offer.

This is a brilliant way to:

• Get your business noticed
• Promote your brand
• Attract some of your competitor’s more fickle followers

For existing customers and followers, you can present discounts as exclusive rewards to help build loyalty.

Treating your core customers right is most important.

And with the right message, a sale could be your brand’s way of helping folks out in a time when money is hard to come by.

Avoid common pitfalls ‍when pricing

Make sure you’re being careful when tinkering with the price of your product. Your product is inextricably linked to its perceived value and a “90% off” or “Five for the price of one” sale could raise a few red flags for savvy shoppers.

Similarly, the sun-bleached “Clearance Sale” poster that’s been stuck on your window all year long isn’t fooling anybody. Remember to use sales sparingly and set a specific goal in mind. This could include a seasonal tradition or a 24-hour flash promotion. Whatever route you decide to take, do it thoughtfully and make it count. ‍

Design tips to get you noticed‍

The most important thing is that people know about your promotion. Take the time to design some eye-grabbing posters and spread the word far and wide. Use the tips below to help get you started.

Be bold, but stay true to yourself: If ever there was an excuse to use bold colors and display fonts, this is it. But stay true to your brand’s identity above all.

Utilize motion to grab attention: It’s worth it to use GIFs or a video template to stand out in people’s social media feeds.

Make sure your call-to-action (CTA) is clear and unmissable: Potential buyers need to know exactly what the special is and what they need to do to get it. Making the mechanism too complex, or burying terms and conditions in the small print, is the easiest way to lose a lead and cause frustration.

Generate hype ahead of time: Creating FOMO and building hype is critical to your sale’s success and promoting your brand. Anticipation and limited availability serve as fuel for the fire when it comes to promotions.

Avoid recycling the same poster design: This might make it invisible over time. Instead, try planning different design phases that lead up to your sale. You can use similar aesthetics to maintain interest and create the impression of something growing day by day.

Additionally, spreading similar promo designs over different platforms can also only help build awareness.

Here’s how GoDaddy Studio can help

Luckily, GoDaddy Studio has specific layout collections to help you design your own sale promo. It allows you to easily create a multi-platform campaign leading up to your business promotion. Simply pop your own images and text into these pre-designed templates for a clean and beautiful design in minutes.

Beyond the specific promotion at hand, wrapping up your marketing material with a coherent and professional design makes a great impression for your brand.‍

Related: GoDaddy Studio — Create eye-catching imagery for your brand

Utilize a marketing calendar‍ to help with promo planning

Take advantage of seasonal opportunities. Many industries (most notably fashion) operate by the shifting seasons.

Clearance sales are the perfect time to refresh your inventory and offer customers a few benefits in the process.

Special celebration days might range from Easter to National Pancake Day. It’s important to be aware of dates like these in regards to sales, especially if they align with your audience’s likes and interests. You can also use them for extra promo power to help encourage meaningful engagement with your target audience.

Key marketing tactics to try‍

These are a few variants of the discount promotion you might want to try for your own brand or small business. Let’s review them below.

The seasonal sale‍

The seasons shift in very convenient three-month phases, enabling four foundational sales every year. These shifts are essential for fashion (or anything fashionable) to keep offerings on-trend.

The upside is that consumers expect these, so you’ll have an eager audience looking out for discounts. But, you’ll need to work hard to stand out and out-promote the competition.

Off-peak deals also work well for seasonal industries like:

• Tourism
• Swimwear
• Restaurants

They often do this to keep business ticking into the quiet times.

Special days

Whereas seasonal sales are quite generic, special days help you find and target a relevant crowd to which you can promote your brand. Most brands plan these days ahead of time on a marketing calendar.

But besides obvious holidays like Christmas and Halloween, you’ll want to look out for celebrations that align with your product and your audience. There are many special days for the following niche audiences:

• Yoga
• Craft beer
• Mental health
• The environment
• Women in tech
• Bulldogs
• Hot dogs

Your company’s anniversary and other milestones count too, so take advantage where you can!

The exclusive sale‍

You’ve worked hard to gain the followers you have, so it’s worth making them feel special to keep ‘em coming back for more.

Never underestimate the marketing power of a happy customer.

An exclusive sale is more likely to have a higher engagement since you’re selling to folks who already know (and hopefully love) your brand.‍

Mystery deals‍

Intrigue new customers by offering a range of variable discounts or special offers to promote your business. These promos can range from 10% to 50% off and entice the customer to click the offer to see if it’s their lucky day or not.

If they end up being offered a discount at the higher end of the spectrum, there’s a decent chance they’ll see it as a sign and jump on the opportunity. Done right, mystery deals can be more engaging and feel more personalized. ‍

Sign-up specials‍

One of the most failsafe ways to acquire a potential customer is with a sign-up offer. You can think of it as a very clean and mutually beneficial agreement. While you gain a new lead, they gain a wicked deal on their first purchase or session. Everybody wins!

Activating a new customer is one of the hardest things to do for a small business, so it’s worth the cost and effort to incentivize this. Simply bringing them into your orbit (via a newsletter sign-up or social media follow) is worth offering something in return. If a customer feels noticed or taken care of from the start, it bodes well for the ongoing journey.‍

Buy one get one

Aah, the classic BOGO technique. There’s a reason we all know the phrase “Buy One Get One” so well. It works like a charm at ramping up sales because free or discounted stuff is very hard to say no to.

A good BOGO promo works great for introducing a wider range of products to your customers.

For example, a candy salesman might notice a customer enjoying something watermelon-flavored and suggest a lime flavor as an add-on. You can also use it to gain new customers by setting up your offer to be shared with a friend.

Checklist‍

Before you go live, make sure you have the essentials in place. Use the checklist below to help launch your sale effectively and better promote your brand.

Timeline ‍

Create a timeline to plan ahead and use the following questions as your guide:

• When does it kick-off and end?
• Are there different phases to the sale?
• When will you start advertising it?

Answering these questions will set up the frame for the rest of your parameters.

Measuring success‍

Zeroing in on goals and objectives will give you a clear direction on how to measure success. Ask yourself the following questions before getting started:

• What are you hoping to achieve with this promotion?
• Is it just about the number of units sold?
• Are you more interested in new leads or retaining customers?

Once you have these answers, work out how you’ll measure success (Google Analytics is a good start). You’ll learn plenty for future promotions by monitoring this data. ‍

Terms and conditions‍

Don’t wait for a disgruntled customer or a devastating loophole to pop up. Take a moment to think through the basic terms and conditions and make them known. Post them on your website or somewhere in your social post. ‍

Unmissable social media posts‍

Visibility within your social media posts can’t be overemphasized. And while attracting attention to your sale is one thing, making it seem enticing and well-organized is another.

That’s what good design does.

A professional design evokes a quality product or service. Nobody needs to know you made it yourself in GoDaddy Studio. Try it out for free and see how it’ll save you time and money.

All images are available as editable templates in GoDaddy Studio.