Your business is chugging along, you are managing to pay the bills and you have plans for bigger and better things in the future. But how do you get your business to the ‘next level’?

For many years, well before the appearance of social media, marketing experts were telling us all about ‘raving fans’: who they are, how to get them and how essential they are. Before social media, this was a slow process. It required building up rapport with customers, exceeding their expectations and finding ways to compel them (of their own accord) to rave about your business.

While all those aspects are still essential to creating ‘raving fans’, we all now have social media at our finger tips. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other social media sites provide you with ample opportunity to connect with people and introduce them to your business, and eventually convert them to sales and raving fans.

Before you start you need to plan carefully and research:

-       What types of posts get the best interaction?

-       What times of day/week are best to post (this will vary with different sites) for optimum interaction? For example, posting something at midnight is not likely to be seen by many people.

-       What information will your customers (existing and potential) find most interesting and useful?

-       What percentage of your posts should be ‘sales’? (Tip: not many!)

The answers to these questions are not the same for everyone and there certainly isn’t a strict formula. However, spending time looking at what other successful local businesses are doing on social media will quickly teach you what works.

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender