By Raúl Arcos Hawkins, former staff member
Lunch special? Thirsty Thursdays? With the COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses, more than ever, need to continue with a marketing strategy and plan. Why? It’s a vital part to maintain steady sales to stay afloat during these uncertain times. With limited capabilities, both the small food service business and bars are two of the most impacted businesses by COVID-19.
A quick social media marketing tool is Facebook. Small business owners and managers can easily use the Ad Center to create an ad. Just follow the screen prompts after clicking, “create ad.” There are other quick actions you can make to stay visible and promote your business. Follow these simple steps:
- Keep relevant - Post daily or schedule daily posts. Take five minutes to post a daily post about a promotion and/or special. You can also schedule daily posts if you are unable to make a post daily.
- Increase likes - Create a promotion to increase your business page likes, for example a $50 gift card giveaway. The more likes your business page has, the more visible your post or page will be. When creating a promotion, make sure those participating like the post and your business page, share the post, and tag at least five friends.
- Share to groups or community classifieds - Share a post, promotion, or business page to groups or community classifieds at no cost. You need to join groups or community classifieds as your personal profile or business page. Cautionary tip, if you use your personal profile to share to groups or community classifieds, be aware that others in those groups can view your personal information.
- Create an event - Create an event for your business page for a promotion or grand reopening. Creating anticipation will generate buzz for your event. Post daily to remind your followers of the event.
- Facebook Live - Do a Facebook Live event to promote your business, event, or promotion. Create a script for Facebook Live to make sure you capture what you are trying to express. Promote Facebook Live with daily posts.
- Boost posts - You can also boost posts, events, or promotions. This tool allows you to target potential customers through various options, such as demographics, locations, shopping categories, etc. A shorter post is easier, unlike those with a lot of writing. You are able to control your budget ranging from a couple dollars to a hundred. If you choose to boost a post, you need to have a payment option on file with Facebook, and you will also be able to receive payments via Facebook Messenger directly into your bank account.
- Peak times - In addition, posting during peak times is very important, this will increase visibility. Peak times in general are Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., and Wednesdays from 3 to 8 p.m. Keeping these times in mind can help increase visibility.
- Promoting your daily specials the night before can also increase volume and sales.
Small businesses must continue to remain visible and relevant during these uncharted and difficult times. Keeping up your marketing strategy and plan is the key to success and survival in these trying times.
