Tactical Tips for Scaling Your Socials
By Amanda Gray
Social media for business goes beyond what you might think. It’s not just about posting beautiful images or wanting to go viral. It’s also not a one-size-fits-all approach. Strategic and thoughtful social media can reinforce brand awareness and strengthen reputation and credibility. It can bolster trust because of the casual way it reaches consumers, which leaves room for levity. We’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks to help new and seasoned business owners scale their social media programs and businesses.
Start with Your Customer
If you’re a business owner, you likely have a strong pulse on who your customer is. And if not, you know the customers you are trying to acquire. Start by asking yourself what motivates your customer, what problem they are trying to solve by purchasing from your brand, and where they spend their time online. If you’re already running ads on Meta, you’ll know if they tend to engage more on Facebook or Instagram. And, if you’re already active on social media channels, it’s easy to identify which platform your customers prefer.
A successful social media strategy relies on the data points you have on your customer. If you have conducted post-purchase surveys or connected with them on social media or your customer service channels, dig into the data. A few simple data points can help you develop content geared towards what you already know about them. Deeply understanding your customers is the best place to start when it comes to ideating content that will resonate with them enough for them to engage with it on social.
Audit Your Socials
If you’re already on social media, chances are you’re on multiple platforms. When it comes to upping your game on your social engagement, a social audit will help you or external hires identify the best path forward to increasing engagement, lead gen, and conversions. Ask yourself:
Which platforms are we on?
What kind of content do we post?
Are our customers engaging, liking, and commenting on our posts?
Scan your social media, gather the information, and put together a simple audit that will serve as your starting point as you plan a more targeted and thoughtful strategy.
Don’t panic if some platforms are not garnering engagement — prioritize the ones that do while maintaining a consistent presence across all.
Understand the Platforms
From Facebook to Instagram to TikTok and beyond, social platforms are unique and differ from each other. It’s important to keep that in mind and make sure your content is dynamic — do not just post the same format and style on all platforms. It’s a little more work, but it goes a long way.
If you’ve allotted an ad budget, Facebook’s Business Suite is a user-friendly, powerful tool that will help you create, launch, and monetize ads. This will increase your overall reach and expand your audience.
On the opposite spectrum of ad monetization and reach, Facebook Groups offer spaces to invite your followers and customers. You can set specific parameters to ensure that only the followers/customers you want to join can participate. First, you’ll want to identify that you have customers who have shared interests and are like-minded. A good indicator is if your customers are interacting with your posts. Creating a private Facebook Group brings them to a central location to share peer-to-peer reviews with one another and connect on their shared enthusiasm and affinity for your brand. You can also utilize tools like chat and polls to interact with them while gaining unbeatable insights from being privy to their conversations.
Instagram is slightly more creative and interactive than Facebook — it’s helpful to either learn all the tools or hire a social media manager who has the skills to leverage the platform.
On Instagram, you can post standalone posts on your feed, live stories on your “story,” and short video snippets with music, voice-over, and more on the reels feature. The possibilities are endless, but the one must-have is ensuring you have an actionable call to action in your bio, as this is a prime location to direct your Instagram followers and viewers to an impactful landing page — whether it’s your homepage or a targeted landing page — this is how to capitalize on your audience, directing them to learn more or make a purchase.
TikTok
Don’t worry about conversions — think connection. Show behind-the-scenes content, process videos, or trend-based clips. Create a hashtag vault to build your niche and experiment with what sticks. Don’t be intimidated by the younger platform but do pay attention to whether your customer demographic is using it. Hire a pro and lessen your load, especially if content creation is not in your toolbox.
Customizing Your Content Strategy
Once you have a handle on your customer data, your audit, and the overall current state of your social media program, you can further customize your content strategy. Decide how regularly you want to post, what types of posts you want to post, and where. Set small goals in terms of the engagement (comments, likes, shares) that you want to see. Keep it realistic, and don’t burn yourself out.
Use Google Sheets to create a free calendar for each platform. If you have a budget for social, consider signing up for a social media management platform. Buffer, Planoly, Later, and Hootsuite offer free versions and a centralized hub to manage your content, schedule posts, and gather insights. The free versions tend to keep it basic, while paid platforms like Sprout Social provide deep analytics, audience insights, and social listening tools, in addition to all the content management they offer.
Unsure of how to create your content? Use a graphic design platform like Canva, which offers tiered plans, to use their AI tools and easy interface for seamless content creation that you can batch.
Don’t be afraid to take a human approach to your content — make it funny, relatable, and thought-provoking. On social media, it’s less about direct sales tactics and more about creating connections that lead to long-term loyalty and value.
Create an Engagement Plan
Social media isn’t a “set it and forget it” game. If you’re putting in the effort to have a social media presence, you must monitor your channels and engage and respond to your audience. As a small business owner, you might not have the time to log in and respond in real-time. This is an area you should hire for — ensuring that the person behind the accounts understands your business and has impeccable communication skills. You might notice that sometimes customers will contact you via social media if they have a problem, so be sure to sync your social engagement specialist with your customer service team if questions or issues arise. The algorithm loves to see activity, so the more you respond and engage, the more people your posts will reach. You can also communicate with the other accounts that your audience follows and collaborate with like-minded brands in your niche.
Social media constantly evolves, but your approach doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By staying true to your brand, leaning into what you know about your customers, and using tools that simplify the process, you can build a presence that feels authentic, manageable, and aligned with your goals. Whether you’re posting once a week or running daily campaigns, consistency, and connection will always win.
About the Author
Amanda Gray is a digital communications leader with 15 years of social media experience. She has supported the building of social programs for small businesses and 500M CPG companies.