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Social media can bring customers to a small business, but only if you approach it with a plan you can keep up. This guide shows where to start without spending all day on your phone.
Start with one or two platforms
You don't need to be everywhere. Pick the platforms where your customers already spend time:
- Facebook: local businesses, community groups, older audiences.
- Instagram: visual businesses like food, beauty, fitness, design and retail.
- LinkedIn: business-to-business services, consultants and professionals.
- TikTok and YouTube Shorts: short video, product demos and behind-the-scenes content.
- Pinterest: ideas and inspiration that people save and come back to, and a good source of website visits.
- YouTube: longer how-to videos that people search for.
Choose one main platform and one secondary one. Do those well before adding more.
Set up your profiles properly
- Use your business name and a clear logo.
- Write a short bio that says what you do and who you help.
- Add your website link and contact details.
- Keep the same name and look across platforms.
What to post
A simple mix works for most businesses:
- Helpful tips related to your work.
- Behind the scenes: your team, your process, a day on the job.
- Customer results, shared with permission.
- Offers and announcements, occasionally, not constantly.
- Answers to common questions your customers ask.
If you're stuck, write down the ten questions customers ask you most. Each one is a post.
How often to post
Consistency matters more than volume. A realistic schedule you can keep, such as a few times a week, beats posting every day for two weeks and then stopping. Batch your content: plan and create a week of posts in one sitting.
Turn messages into customers
The most valuable part of social media is often the direct messages and comments from people asking about your services. These are leads, and they're easy to lose in a busy inbox. Reply quickly, mention what they asked about, agree a next step, and record the lead somewhere you'll follow up. A CRM such as FoxyCRM keeps every enquiry and follow-up in one place, wherever it came from.
Organic or paid?
Organic posting builds trust over time. Paid ads can reach new people quickly but cost money and need testing. Many small businesses start organic, learn what their audience responds to, and then put a small budget behind the posts that already work.
Measure what matters
Ignore vanity numbers. Track:
- how many enquiries came from social media
- how many of those became customers
- which posts led to messages or website visits
A one-week starter plan
- Pick your main platform.
- Update your profile and bio.
- Write down 10 customer questions.
- Create three posts from those questions.
- Post them across the week.
- Reply to every comment and message within a day.
- Log every lead so you can follow up.
Browse platforms in our Social Media category.
Visit FoxyCRM.com