Somehow 2023 is coming to an end and it’s time for us to prep for a new year of running our businesses. I know better than anybody that things move a mile a minute as a business owner, but it’s vital to the success and growth of your company to intentionally pause and assess how certain aspects of your business are going. Your marketing strategy is no exception. At Millennial Marketing, we closely analyze how things are working for our clients so that we can adjust and get the best ROI possible. Keep reading to learn the best online marketing strategy for small business in 2024.
Social Media Strategies for 2024
It’s no secret that social media can be a fantastic marketing tool. However, if your strategies aren’t being updated as often as their algorithms, you could be wasting precious time and money. This strategy lists a few things you can do to stay relevant and increase your visibility on Facebook and Instagram.
For most of our clients, we create enough content for 2 static posts (photos, carousels, graphics) and 2 videos (Reels) on the feed every week. You can certainly still be successful on social media without this many feed posts every week, but if you’re going to post less than this make sure that your strategy is consistent. Your content will perform better if you post to your feed twice every week than it would if you posted once this week, four times next week, and not at all the following week. The most important thing is to stay consistent, so choose a number of weekly feed posts that you can realistically commit to.
No matter how many feed posts per week you choose to commit to, it’s imperative that video is part of your strategy. When our marketing agency is making video content for our clients, we try to include a variation of silly CapCut edits, videos of someone talking in front of the camera, and trending audio.
In 2024, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not scheduling any content out. Your responsibility to keep up with your accounts just isn’t feasible without this FREE feature. Our team uses Meta to schedule all Facebook and Instagram content for free, but there are other paid platforms that do the job just as well. Either way, do what you can to have at least half of your weekly feed content scheduled out before the month starts. That way when you inevitably get so busy that social media is the last thing on your mind, there’s still content going out to keep your page active and in front of new users.
While feed content is still incredibly important to the growth of your accounts, we’re definitely seeing trends that encourage more authentic content as we move into the new year. This is great news for business owners, because it means you don’t have to try as hard. Instagram has always been known for its beautifully curated feed, with over-edited photos and pristine grids. Thankfully that’s trending out and users are drawn more and more to authentic content over curated content. This basically means that you’ll get better engagement from a quick selfie that you throw on your page than you would with a graphic that took you over an hour to make. #win
We’re seeing huge upticks in Story engagement across industries. Make sure you’re posting something to Stories every day. If you’re sharing a feed post, also include some text with your two cents. Stories are only visible to your followers for 24 hours so you should feel no stress at all to make these look any kind of way. The most important part of posting Stories is to post consistently (are you catching a theme here?), show your face periodically, and include engagement stickers as often as you can. Engagement stickers are our favorite way to boost engagement on social media accounts. These include things like polls, emoji sliders, question stickers. It’s quicker and easier for users to engage by taping their vote in a poll than it is for them to leave a comment on a feed post. Capture as much of this easy, mindless engagement as possible.
Engagement is key and our team spends at least 2 hours per week per account just scrolling, liking, commenting, and following new accounts. It’s unlikely that you’ll get the results you’re looking for on social media without this piece. It certainly doesn’t have to be for a set amount of time per week to be successful, but you should be making an effort to spend some time just enjoying the platform and using it the way it was meant to be used- to create connections!
Most business accounts that we help manage are missing one massive, crucial piece: collaborations. Collabs are some of the easiest ways for business accounts to grow and they’re never taken advantage of as often as they could be. At least once a month, plan on working with another company, brand, local “influencer”, or local organization to mutually benefit from users on both accounts. Here are some examples for how you could do this:
A hair salon could partner with a product line they sell to do a giveaway
An attorney’s office could partner with a local domestic abuse organization to create informational content for both accounts
A company that sells a hair dryer could partner with a wig company to create videos to test the product on their wigs
A gym could partner with a local resident with at least 5,000 followers to give them a free month membership and create a fitness routine for them to follow, with the resident posting videos every week with progress updates
Some influencers will ask for payment for this kind of work, but we always recommend looking for micro-influencers to work with instead. Basically, users who are trying to grow their accounts and need partnerships like this to reach their goals. Users with around 5,000 followers can often have much higher engagement rates than content creators with a much larger following. As business accounts, we want to take advantage of this opportunity for higher conversions.
In 2024, we want to make an effort to do things we haven’t done before on social media. Maybe that means to finally record yourself doing a stupid little dance for 10 seconds. Maybe it means going live for the first time in 5 years. Maybe it means creating a VIP group for early bird promotions. It’s time to think outside of the box and do something you haven’t done before!
Our last social media strategy tip for 2024 goes against our advice over the past few years. If you’ve been following for a while, you know we’re always gone out of our way to promote organic strategies and avoid ads for the most part. We’re still huge proponents of organic content, but right now we’re seeing the highest conversion rates from ads that we’ve ever seen. We recommend at least playing around with some ads in 2024, especially on Facebook and Instagram. Google ads tend to be more expensive and confusing to do yourself, so start with social. When running ads, always use the Ad Manager- never Boost your posts. You’ll have way more control over who sees the content through the Ad Manager. If there’s ever been a time to run some ads, it’s right now.
There are a million ways to be successful in social media/SEO/email marketing/etc., but after managing social media accounts for businesses all over the country, these are the strategies I would recommend as we move into 2024. I’d love to hear your feedback if you’ve used any of these tactics successfully or plan to try any of them out. Happy marketing!
Rank Higher in Google Search Results in 2024
For many businesses, new leads are more likely to come from a Google search than they are a Facebook search. It’s important to have the right website and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies in place to get the best traffic to your site.We’re going to continue to see updates to Google’s algorithm so that users have an easier time finding what they’re looking for Here’s what our team recommends to get in front of them:
Make sure your website and Google My Business account has up to date information. Conflicting or incorrect information is a simple thing that tells Google whether you’re a legit business that should be promoted to its users. This means phone numbers, emails, addresses, hours of operation, etc.
It seems like common sense, but you want to make sure that your website is easy to navigate. Think about what you want your ideal customer to do once they land on your site and lay things out in a way that they can easily get there. Users don’t have the attention span to search through your site for whatever they’re looking for. It needs to be easy to find. Again, should go without saying in 2024, but your website HAS to be mobile-optimized. Way too many of your website visitors are using their phones to find you for you to ignore your mobile site.
Google has been clear that each page of your website needs to have at least 100 words to show up at all in search results. Comb through your website and update any pages with less than 100 words. Try to include keywords in the copywriting of your website that your ideal customer would search in the Google search bar.
Email Marketing Strategies for 2024
Email might not seem like the best place to spend your limited time creating content, but it continues to be a valuable place to make sales across industries. If you’re not already using an email platform, 2024 is the year to start. We love Flodesk (click HERE for a code to get 50% off your first year with Flodesk). Start with at least one email per month and try to build up your email list using a pop-up on your website and regular social media prompts. We love posting a google form link to Stories to get new subscribers.
2024 is gearing up to be another great year to invest in digital marketing strategies for your business. With a few months until the new year, now is the perfect time to start thinking about the best ways to manage your social media, website, email campaigns, and more for the coming year. If you’d like a hand with your company’s digital marketing this year, we’d love to offer our services! Millennial Marketing offers social media management, website design and management, Search Engine Optimization, email marketing, video content creation, and more. Reach out to us with any questions or to get a quote for marketing services for your business!