Like it or not, social media is an essential function in most businesses these days. You could be a wildly successful and well-marketed company and not find your name on TV commercials, billboards or in the newspaper. Not only is it the new trend of marketing, but people spend more time staring at social media than they stare at just about anything else. While a billboard might get 10 seconds of attention at a maximum, Facebook or Instagram get hours a day.

It makes sense that you need to adapt to this relatively new reality and use it to your advantage because, realistically, there are a whole lot of advantages here.

The biggest pointer I could give would be to “consistently engage with small content.” I don’t know how many times I’ve directed and pushed out a relatively expensive and quality video, just to have it simply posted and immediately forgotten by my client’s audience—garnering less than a dozen likes and zero shares. You can’t treat your social media content in the way you would treat a television commercial.

Instead, you have to find the most interesting facets of your company and show them on a daily basis. For example, let’s say we’re advertising a tutoring business. Many people would imagine a commercial showing what they do and all the great deals they can offer over competitive tutoring businesses—nobody will watch this, since it likely needs to be longer than ten seconds. Your audience is going to blast past it on their Facebook feed. Many people might also imagine pictures showing kids getting taught by tutors, which is great, but might get old after a few days.

If you’ve got a company mascot, you’d better be puttin’ him up there weekly at a minimum.

That’s where the word “small” in “consistently engage with small content” comes in. Here are some ideas for our fictitious tutoring company:

  • Have your brand printed on a pen or pencil? Take a closeup and post it with a caption like: “XYZ Tutoring: we keep our pencils sharp and our minds sharper! #tutoring #xzytutoring #education” or something of that nature.
  • Have some rewards for kids that do well? Take a picture of them individually and say something like, “Here at XYZ Tutoring we push children and recognize their achievements—in ways they appreciate! #xyztutoring #rewards #education”
  • Have learning aids like blocks or fake money? Grab a closeup: “We’re always thinking outside the box. #xyztutoring”

With this particular organization, I would probably market to the parents since they’re the ones paying you. Find small stuff that won’t blow people’s minds, but makes them smile slightly and say to themselves, “Huh. That’s pretty cool,” and then press the like button.

If you’re not the type that enjoys working this daily grind on social media, have no fear! Facebook allows you to schedule posts, so you can schedule out daily posts (or even just three a week) on Monday and forget about it—though if people start commenting, responses always build rapport. There are programs like Hootsuite where you can schedule multiple platforms at a time.

“Cool, Luke. But my business isn’t exactly a prime example for ‘interesting facets’.”