13 Social Media Strategies & Resources for Black-Owned Businesses
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a new blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of Black business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.
Since the early 2000s, social media has impacted every aspect of people’s lives, including business. Entrepreneurs from all over the world have and continue to use social media as a tool to launch their brand, connect with people, and garner new customers.
Social media quickly replaced flyers as a form of marketing, and now business owners are investing their time into marketing strategies to reach 4.2 billion social media users worldwide.
Additionally, a Forbes article stated that 84% of respondents who completed a CMO Survey report using social media for brand building. One might even argue that social media is just as critical as a company’s website.
Social media has served as a staple in the Black community to connect in creative and hilarious ways through pictures, videos, words, and more. In fact, we’re so connected that it can take only a few minutes for people, services, or products to go viral on major social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, or Snapchat.
These sites have also helped Black-owned businesses gain visibility and engage with users in free, innovative ways.
I spoke with three social media experts who shared a list of strategies, resources, and success stories Black business owners can use to increase their following and expand their audiences. Let’s dive in.
6 Social Media Strategies for Black Business Owners
1. Build a community by creating engaging content.
Social media manager coach and content strategist Bolaji Ajibare believes creating engaging content is one of the main strategies Black-owned businesses should leverage.
Ajibare, who is popularly called TheSocialMediaOga, says that business owners should create material that allows them to interact with their followers. Entrepreneurs can grow their community by asking their audience what kind of information they’d like to see on their page to serve them properly.
Ajibare says it’s a good idea for users to incorporate various information to appeal to followers — including promotional, inspirational, and educational content, to display balanced material on their page.
Content and design strategist Alicia Noelle further emphasizes that business owners should post creative content that influences people to interact with them. Creating polls and responding to followers in the comments section are a couple of ways that business owners can communicate with their followers. Noelle says these efforts are the critical difference from simply gaining followers.
“I think that that’s what small businesses are going to have to realize as they change their marketing tactics in 2021, and beyond — that people are no longer going to buy from you because it looks pretty,” Noelle said. “They want to feel like they belong in your community, and you have …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
