I love talking to local business owners about their social media presence. They have something really cool to sell, love talking about it, but just need more people to hear and get as excited as they are.

From hairdressers to boutique home wares, coffee shops to ice cream stands, whatever your business, here are three super-simple social media marketing tips you can do right now.

1. Target your local audience with an offer

Go to Facebook and under the Create A Post section is an icon for ‘Create Offer’. Whether it’s a 10% off a haircut, get an extra scoop of vanilla free, or a biscotti with any latte, make it something that would make people come to your store instead of your competitor.

Add a photo and make it a good one. Include all the details and whether its an online or in-store offer.

Now, here’s the localisation part. Before you hit Publish, go to Boost Post. Here you can select your audience, and be super-specific. Target your local area and under the Interests section, add in your local competitors. All the hard work they’ve done to build a local audience can work for you. If their audience are all local, you can target them and your offer is more likely to show up in their news feed.

Then decide how much you’d like to spend on the ad. Feel free to try a small spend first to see how it performs and then increase later.

2. Get your customers to create content for you

User-generated content, or UGC is every social media marketers dream. Ask your customers to share a photo of themselves enjoying your product, a snap of their new haircut, or a foodie-style shot of their dish for a chance to win something. You can also incentivise them to share for a chance to be featured on your channel. If they have a lot of followers, this may not mean much to them, but for most people, they’ll enjoy the shout-out.

Make sure they can easily find your Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook account’s handle so they can tag you, and you can also have a hashtag for them to include in their post. Make it catchy and not too obscure. #VancouversBestIceCream or #MainStreetHair are clear enough and people can look up the content.

If you have a unique selling-point, get your visitors to focus on that instead of random photos.

Once people start sharing their photos, ask permission in their comments if it’s ok for you to share and if they say yes, go for it. You’ve got curated, beautiful (and free) content for your own channel. Make sure you tag the original creator too.

3. Work on your local brand awareness

Similar to the offer creation in tip 1, getting people to walk in to your store is all about putting the idea in their head. While they may not make a journey just to visit, if they’ve seen something about you online, or have seen something you sell that they’d like to see, they’ll be more likely to pop in when they’re in the area.

Target people who live in your area and combine interests in your Facebook post promotion. If you’re a hairdresser on Main street, Vancouver, target people who are interested in hair styles, hair products, specific haircare brands and some businesses that are nearby. You can also specify the gender and age group you’d like to show the ad to.

If you’re an ice cream store, then target a few local ‘foodie’ brands who love to talk about the latest fancy restaurants. You could even start inviting some of the local content creators to your store and ask them to help spread the word. Creating local brand ambassadors is always a good thing!

Need a little help with your local business? I’m here to help. Email James@SocialDad.ca and let’s grab a coffee.