Social media represents a big part of the time people spend on the internet. Between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and many other platforms, the average person spends 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media every day.

With 62.3% of the world’s population using social media regularly, any marketing strategy should consider social media at the very least.

But the question we posed in the title is the important one – does it matter if your business has no social media presence? 

The short answer is yes… because while you might not use social media, your potential customers might.

And by not having a presence, you could be failing to reach your ideal audience entirely.

In recent years, many businesses have thrived purely through social media.

Businesses can be grown from home and build a big following through visual content on social media. That means the likes of Instagram and TikTok can be a useful platform, while more written content can be successful on LinkedIn.

But we don’t mean content for content’s sake.

For example, there’s no use in a small accountancy firm deciding they want to go viral by filming funny videos and generating a large TikTok following – but that doesn’t mean it’s a hard no to all social media.

However, there are many ways a firm like this could create content that speaks to their audience. That might be infographics on what the IR35 rules mean for their clients or how the new tax reporting rules might affect them, linking to a longer form blog, This would be valuable content that their audience is more likely to engage with.

Go where your audience is.

When building an email list, you wouldn’t think twice about communicating regularly. And that should be true of your social content too.

Reaching the right audience is an important part of finding new customers, both in the short-term for making sales and in the long-term for building relationships.

The question isn’t whether your business needs social media, it’s which social media channels do you need?

If you’re a business that relies on visuals, whether you’re a painter and decorator, a baker, a printer or a creative, then Instagram and similar visual channels are going to be your strong suit.

Whereas if you’re a more professionally focused company, whether that’s in the marketing space, business solutions or software, then LinkedIn is going to be a platform that’s invaluable to you.

Of course, there’s crossover. A company that specialises in graphic design could find different audiences (both still relevant) on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and develop separate communities on those platforms.

One of the biggest barriers to completion in business is a fear of the unknown. It’s only natural to kick the can down the road or avoid social media entirely if you’re not familiar or comfortable with it.

There are plenty of options when it comes to social media, depending on your budget and aims.

If you’re looking to curate a social media following and produce regular content, you might look to hire a community manager or social media manager to help achieve that.

It could even be a part-time role or perhaps there is somebody in the team who could take on the role as part of their duties, depending on whether that fits in their schedule and doesn’t overstretch them.

Or you could employ an outside agency to help with it, but the reality is that authenticity is the name of the game with social media content. And that’s best placed coming from the person who knows the most about your business and its values (hint: that’s you!).

Perhaps a freelancer could be the right option to work with you for a few hours a week and develop your brand voice on social media.

Doing your research is as important with social media as it is with any other part of your business as it may well be the first (or only) place people see you and consume your content.

Engaging with people across multiple social platforms is always the goal, but some of your potential customers might favour one platform so it’s important that they are exposed to the content you want them to see.

For example, if you’ve written a blog on the website about a hot topic in your field and you want to get people to read it, simply popping the title of the blog with a ‘Read more: LINK’ beneath isn’t going to generate the engagement you want.

But if you can deliver value by taking some of the key points from your blog and posting it on your Facebook feed (for example) with a relevant image, and then you offer people the chance to read more if they want, you’re likely to get much more engagement.

And by engagement, we mean people viewing, reading, and clicking on your content!

Value is important to people on social media – it’s so easy to scroll past content that you need to grab their attention in a split second. The more value you deliver, the more likely it is that they stop and read your content in the future.

Trends!

Not TikTok dances or meme posts… unless you can really nail that, and you get the right audience (but that’s much harder than it seems).

Build your content around the trends in YOUR industry. Talk about the things your customers and potential customers are talking about.

Is there a particular issue that’s causing problems for people? A recent software update that’s causing usability issues? Is there advice you can give to help people with something?

All things being equal, people will buy from their friends.

That means if you’re competing with another company and someone just so happens to know the owner of the other business, you can assume that they’ll be heading in their direction rather than yours.

But by delivering value, speaking to people on a regular basis on your chosen social media platforms and developing a community to engage with, you build familiarity and trust.

Your social media content has to be real – stories told by real people and advice given with a bit of personality and heart. If there’s a story you can tell that links into the point you want to make, it makes it compelling for your potential customers to read.

Be real, post relevant content, build trust and deliver value.