The most useful social media marketing tips for a small business are: pick the one or two platforms your customers actually use, post on a planned calendar, lead with strong visuals and short vertical video, reply to people, work with small niche creators who disclose the partnership, and measure results monthly. Focus beats trying to be everywhere.
Key Takeaways
- YouTube (84%) and Facebook (71%) reach the most US adults, and Instagram reaches 50%, according to Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey.
- Instagram is used by 80% of US adults aged 18-29, compared with 19% of those 65 and older (Pew, 2025).
- Google+ shut down in April 2019 and IGTV was discontinued in March 2022; Twitter was renamed X in July 2023.
- In the US, the Federal Trade Commission expects influencers to clearly disclose any material connection with a brand, including free products.
- A simple calendar, consistent replies and monthly measurement matter more than the number of platforms.
Note (September 2026): Google+ shut down for consumers in April 2019. For local and search visibility, businesses now use a Google Business Profile instead.
The start of every planning cycle is a good time to review what worked, set new goals and adjust your social media marketing strategy. Social media has changed the way business owners, companies and marketers connect with prospective customers.
Done well, social media can bring a small business a steady flow of leads and sales. However, do it wrong, and it can be a major time suck, even driving customers and prospects away.
This guide shares eight practical social media marketing tips that a small business can apply straight away.
Choose the best social media channel for your business
It’s crucial to find the right platform that your target audience uses. To do this, you need to look at the demographics of the users on each platform. Then, consider how active your audience is on that platform. For instance, Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey found that 80% of US adults aged 18-29 use Instagram and 68% use Facebook, while among adults 65 and older 57% use Facebook and only 19% use Instagram.
Aside from engagement and demographics, you also need to understand how individuals use the platform. Here is a guide on major social media platforms to help you find the right target audience.
Facebook: This social media network is great if you want to build brand loyalty and you already have an existing customer base. However, the downside of Facebook is that it’s relatively hard to find a new audience (mainly because it has a large population.) The reach of your posts is also limited, even within your own network.
So, consider your business goals at the end of the day. If you want to acquire new leads, then this might not be the best option. However, if you already have a loyal following and want to keep in touch with your audience regularly, then it’s an excellent choice for your business. Here’s a practical guide to effective advertising on Facebook.
Twitter: X (formerly Twitter, renamed in July 2023) is a useful platform to build brand awareness. The platform can also give you relevant insights on the topics that are trending and is often used by the media to find related stories. It’s also excellent in providing real-time updates to an audience.
Pinterest: Pinterest is a visual-based platform, combined with stunning graphics to engage users. Females mostly dominate the Pinterest demographic, and users can usually save the content they love on their respective boards by “pinning.” The most common pins on the platform are style ideas, recipes, stunning photography, and DIY ideas. Pinterest is often associated with shopping and product discovery; 36% of US adults said they used it in Pew Research Center’s 2024 survey.
YouTube: YouTube is the most widely used social platform among US adults: 84% said they use it in Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey. Many people also use it like a search engine, especially for “how-to” videos. Service industry businesses usually work well with this platform.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a professional network used for job searching, recruiting and business-to-business networking; 32% of US adults said they used it in Pew Research Center’s 2024 survey.
Instagram: Instagram is used by half of US adults (50%) and by 80% of adults aged 18-29, according to Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey. The platform relies solely on photos and videos for conversion. It works well with businesses that are visual based such as food, retail, art, and beauty. Whether Instagram brings in more leads than Facebook depends on the audience and industry, so test both before committing budget.
Google+: Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019, so it is no longer an option. When it still existed, if one of your business goals was SEO, Google+ was sometimes recommended; it was mostly associated with older male users and with engineering, software and design businesses. Today, businesses that want local search visibility use a Google Business Profile instead.
Create a social media calendar
For you to get consistent results, you need to plan your social media activities and post on a regular basis. That’s why it’s vital to create a strategy to get better results with minimal time and effort.
You have to know which activities that you need to automate and which ones to assign to an employee or contractor. Create a social media calendar for your organization’s social media activity. It’s a fantastic tool to stay relevant, build credibility, allocate your company’s resources, and track your content.
Produce eye-catching visuals to stand out
One widely shared 2016 claim is that social media content gets 94 percent more views if it has visual elements in it? It’s true ‒ people tend to engage with content if it educates the reader, and is visually appealing to the eye. That’s why you need to use high-quality stock photos to stand out.
An average attention span of a person is so short these days that you need to add compelling images and videos to your social content. It helps generates engagement and is fantastic for business who have products that they want to show to their audience.
If your business is service-based, why not consider coming up with visually stunning photos that perfectly compliments the text? Also, put visual-based platforms like Pinterest and Instagram as your top priority.
Build a stronger relationship with your followers
The landscape of digital marketing is constantly changing, and these days, creating a profile isn’t enough. Optimizing your profile and posting on a regular basis isn’t enough, either.
Social media isn’t just about promotion ‒ it’s all about engagement. Social media is the primary driving force if you want your business to flourish. You need to gain a personalized interaction with your followers.
Investing in strong customer relationships will make you stand out from your fiercest competitors ‒ and that’s by showing that you genuinely care and by addressing your customers’ pain points. As a result, you’ll create loyal customers who will become evangelists to your brand.
Give influencer marketing a try
Influencers play a key role in the social media ecosystem. They act as a mediator between the brand and the average customer. While you might not afford a celebrity or a macro-influencer who have millions of followers, micro-influencers are as potent in reaching out to target audiences these days.
Micro-influencers have become an attractive option for brands because they reach specific niche audiences. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance for influencers says any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand, including free products, must be clearly disclosed, so build that into every agreement.
Humanize your brand on social media
Your followers and prospects don’t want to engage in a brand with zero personality. Many businesses are so focused on attracting readers and gaining more fans and followers that they often fail to make an online interaction with the person. Don’t fall in the same trap. You need to humanize your marketing strategy.
Think about it ‒ it’s always the relationships that you build with your customers that will make you stand out. So why not step back in your mentality of gaining new clients and leads for a bit and try to show your audience your fun side?
Show everyone what your business is and what you’re all about. Also, try to adopt the 80-20 rule. Put 80 percent of your efforts to creating something fun and exciting, and the remaining 20 percent to promoting your brand.
Your website is also a great place to start. Putting positive recommendations from your previous clients can go a long way. Earlier studies have shown that people tend to trust the recommendations of strangers and peers more than the traditional advertisements of brands.
Take advantage of the booming social TV
Today, many social media platforms are putting their focus on vertical videos since most people use their mobile phones vertically all the time. At the same time, this focus goes hand in hand with another trend that is booming- social TV.
So what is social TV? Here it means longer and vertical video published inside social apps; Instagram’s IGTV, launched in June 2018, was an early example. YouTube TV is something different: a US subscription live-TV streaming service launched in 2017. For instance, if your business is already creating videos for social, you can rework and repurpose those horizontal and square videos that you’ve made in the past, crop those videos vertically, and post them as Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts (IGTV no longer exists).
Instagram discontinued IGTV in March 2022 and moved video into the main app, with Reels as its short-form format. YouTube Shorts now accepts vertical videos of up to three minutes (the limit was 60 seconds before September 2024). Both are low-cost ways to test whether short vertical video works for your business.
Incorporate Augmented and Virtual Reality
Another game changer is using augmented and virtual reality. In its most basic form, Augmented Reality, or AR, utilizes software that adds artificial elements on real-world images. AR can be used in a smartphone and a headset.
Businesses can utilize AR for consumers for them to stand out from their fiercest competitors, offering them something unique.
For instance, in furniture shopping. Businesses in the furniture industry can utilize AR making customers see what the pieces of furniture will look like in their own home before buying.
The same way in a restaurant business ‒ diners can already see the presentation of their food before it even arrives by merely pointing their smartphone on the menu.
Over to You
If you’re a business owner or a digital marketer, it’s vital that you create a winning social media strategy that will make you stand out. Social media has become an essential channel for small businesses, so review your social media plan at least once a year and make it a clear priority.
By applying these tips that are tailored to optimize your current social media strategy and drive in conversions, you give your business a better chance of stronger results in the year ahead.
Which Social Media Platform Is Best for a Small Business?
The best social media platform for a small business is the one its customers already use. Pew Research Center’s survey of 5,022 US adults (February 5 to June 18, 2025) gives a reliable starting point for the US market; audiences in other countries differ, so check local data where you sell.
| Platform | US adults who use it | Adults aged 18-29 | Typical small-business use |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 84% (2025) | 95% | How-to videos, demos, Shorts |
| 71% (2025) | 68% | Existing customers, local groups, events | |
| 50% (2025) | 80% | Visual products, Reels, Stories | |
| TikTok | 37% (2025) | 63% | Short entertaining video, younger buyers |
| 36% (2024) | Not reported in 2025 | Product discovery, recipes, DIY, style | |
| 32% (2024) | Not reported in 2025 | B2B, recruiting, professional services | |
| X (formerly Twitter) | 21% (2025) | 33% | News, real-time updates, customer service |
| Threads | 8% (2025) | 15% | Text conversations linked to Instagram |
Source: Pew Research Center, Social Media Fact Sheet (data collected February to June 2025; Pinterest and LinkedIn figures are from the June 2024 survey, the latest year Pew reported them).
Newer platforms can still matter. Threads, Meta’s text-based app that requires an Instagram account, launched on July 5, 2023 and had over 400 million monthly active users as of August 2025, according to Wikipedia. Business-to-business firms should read how B2B social media content differs from B2C before choosing a channel.
What Has Changed Since These Tips Were First Written?
Several platforms mentioned above have changed:
- Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019, after low engagement and disclosed software flaws.
- IGTV was folded into the main Instagram app from October 2021 and discontinued in March 2022; Instagram now focuses on video in the main app, including Reels.
- Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk in October 2022 and rebranded as X from July 2023; the rebrand was completed by May 2024.
- YouTube Shorts became available to the public on July 13, 2021, and since September 2024 allows vertical videos of up to three minutes.
- Threads launched on July 5, 2023 as Meta’s text-based rival to X.
How to Build a Simple Social Media Plan: 6 Steps
- Set one goal. Pick a single measurable outcome, such as website visits, enquiries, bookings or store visits.
- Choose one or two platforms. Use the table above and your own customer data rather than trying to be on every network.
- Plan a monthly calendar. Mix helpful, entertaining and promotional posts, keeping most of them non-promotional, as the 80-20 idea in this article suggests.
- Reuse content across formats. Turn one video into a vertical Reel or Short, a still image and a text post.
- Reply every day. Answer comments and messages quickly; see these ways to encourage authentic comments on Instagram.
- Measure monthly. Use each platform’s built-in analytics to compare reach, engagement and clicks, then keep what works and drop what does not.
Common Social Media Mistakes Small Businesses Make
- Opening accounts on every platform and then posting rarely on all of them.
- Posting only promotions, which gives followers little reason to engage.
- Ignoring comments and direct messages, which are often sales enquiries.
- Working with influencers without a clear, visible disclosure of the partnership.
- Treating social media as separate from search: a strong website and small business SEO on a budget help social traffic convert.
Social media works best as one part of a wider mix; this overview of the best types of marketing for a small business shows how it fits with email, search and local marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best social media platform for a small business?
The best platform is the one your customers use most. In the US, YouTube (84%) and Facebook (71%) reach the most adults, Instagram reaches 50% and is used by 80% of adults aged 18-29, and LinkedIn suits B2B and professional services, according to Pew Research Center.
How often should a small business post on social media?
There is no single correct number. Choose a frequency you can sustain every week, put it in a social media calendar and review engagement monthly; consistency matters more than volume.
Is Google+ still useful for business?
No. Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019. Businesses that want to appear in Google’s local results now use a Google Business Profile instead.
Does IGTV still exist?
No. Instagram discontinued IGTV in March 2022 and moved video into the main app, where Reels is the short-form video format.
Do influencers have to disclose brand partnerships?
Yes, in the US. The Federal Trade Commission’s guidance says influencers must clearly disclose any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand, including free products, and should not rely on a platform’s disclosure tool alone. Other countries have their own rules.
1 Comment
Incorporate chatbots into your social strategy. Chat messaging has an 80% open rate! Smart chatbot automated workflows can be effective for making that initial connection, answering questions, and driving your audience further along their customer journey. With that said, I agree with the humanizing your marketing strategy. Don’t rely on chatbots too much!