Top social media tips for small businesses
As a small business, it’s likely that your marketing department is relatively small to non-existent, so the world of marketing and social media can feel overwhelming. Not only that, time, staff and funding usually come in short supply, making it difficult for SMEs to establish an online presence.
Nevertheless, to stay relevant in today’s digital world, you must enter your business into the social space. According to recent reports, in 2026 there are 5.79 billion (nearly 70% of the global population) active social media users worldwide, with approximately 55.5 million in the UK alone – so it’s never been more important to tap into social media.
As consumption trends have shifted away from traditional media and towards digital and mobile, social media is regarded as the ultimate tool for promoting your brand, increasing public awareness and nurturing a connection with your target market – but how do you achieve quick success? Follow these social media tips to get your business started on social media.
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Be picky with platforms
Consistency is vital to make social media work for you, so don’t assume you have to create a profile across all platforms. Adding more than necessary will result in sporadic, inconsistent activity, so focus on the one or two most relevant platforms for your audience.
So, which site will get the best results for your business? Here’s a quick guide to the main sites:
Facebook: Facebook has historically been the most popular social media channel with the largest user base. This has declined over time with more of the user base being older. It lets people connect with friends, share links, photos, videos and events, join local groups and more. There are options for promoting content organically and through paid promotions in Meta Business Suite.
TikTok: Launched in 2016, TikTok, the Chinese-developed app for sharing short-form video content, has quickly grown to become the fifth most used social platform in the world, with 16.8 million users in the UK alone. TikTok predominantly attracts a younger audience (approximately 76 per cent of online 15-24 year olds in the UK engaged with the app in 2024), meaning it should be your go to platform if your business targets this demographic.
X: Widely regarded as the best platform for engagement and growing more popular as a tool for social customer service, X is fast-paced and allows reactivity. Users can post messages of up to 280 characters, share photos and videos, create custom lists, send direct messages and more. Content can be promoted organically, with X Cards or paid promotions. X isn’t the largest site, but it has a devoted user base of mostly male (61.9%) millennials (36%), 77% of whom login multiple times per day. While X has lost several million users since Elon Musk’s takeover, it still has 557 million worldwide.
Instagram: Instagram is a visual social media platform based on photos, Stories and Reels. Statista figures from 2025 show that there are approximately 35 million Instagram users in the UK. Now Instagram can be used on desktop as well, which is more convenient than the mobile-only functionality it used to have. Paid advertising is available through Meta Business Suite.
LinkedIn: The largest social media network for professionals. LinkedIn is a business-focused network where users add connections, share links, join groups, write recommendations, and search for connections by company, location, industry and skills. Paid-for advertising is also available.
YouTube: A video-sharing platform with over a billion users, where people can view, upload, rate, share, subscribe to and comment on content. There are 35m users in the UK, with the largest share aged 25-34 and a roughly even split between male and female users. Businesses can use YouTube as a marketing tool in a number of ways. You can create original content to engage your audience, make use of its army of popular influencers, or run ads on the platform, which are sure to be seen by an enormous audience.
Bluesky: Wondering where those millions of departing X users ended up? The answer is Bluesky, an alternative microblogging platform that allows users to share short posts containing text, images, or videos. If that sounds a lot like X (it even looks very similar), that’s because it is, by design. It was started by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a decentralised version of his original platform. While it still has a much smaller user base than its nearest rivals, Bluesky’s UK audience is estimated to be just under 1 million.
Reddit: Reddit has overtaken TikTok as the fourth most popular social media platform in the UK. A forum-based platform, registered users (known as Redditors) post anonymously in communities (called subreddits) that can range from 1 million visitors a week to less than 1,000 over the course of a year. These can be upvoted or downvoted by other users, which affect a user’s ‘karma’ (a mark of reliability that impacts their ability to join and post in certain groups). It’s a platform where users can research brands and ask questions, and can be a great opportunity for businesses to research the market by “lurking” (not posting, just reading). There are various advertising opportunities on Reddit, which can be great to target hard-to-reach customers, but it’s important to note that Redditors tend not to like being advertised to and many have ad-blockers.
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Follow a plan
Social media should be treated in the same way as any business decision. There needs to be a purpose behind each profile you create and you need to establish what your objectives are, plus what you want it to achieve for your brand before you start posting. Do you need to boost sales, enhance brand awareness or increase engagement with your customers? Different platforms are better suited to different objectives; they don’t behave in the same way. Once you’ve set your goal, and know which platforms you want to post on, keep these in mind when planning your strategy.
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Take time to review competitors’ profiles, research relevant content and create a schedule of posts for each platform you are using. Think about broad campaigns that can be run via multiple platforms, like launching a promotion or competition, for example, rather than posting randomly. Brands can also take advantage of seasonality with content, so consider what’s coming up on the calendar and plan your posts to be relevant. Generally speaking, it’s good to have at least one month’s worth of content planned in advance.
There’s an abundance of tools that can help formulate your content and make regular posting much easier. If you create a business profile on Facebook, you have access to free publishing tools and post insights, and for other platforms, SproutSocial, HootSuite and Buffer are examples of free-to-use tools that will help you to schedule content.
Stay social
Building a following requires regular interaction, so while content planners and strategies are important, reacting to comments and engaging with influencers is essential if you want to make your mark. Share, retweet and comment on posts that are relevant to your brand, join groups and follow the key players in your industry. It’s helpful to monitor what potential customers are talking about on social media and think about how you can get involved in the chat – whether it’s offering an opinion or striking up a new conversation, building relationships with influencers can open doors to potential new customers.
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Become a valuable contributor
One of the keys to success on social is commitment. Once you’ve identified who you are trying to reach and the relevant platforms, you need to provide valuable content that resonates with your audience. Sharing your expertise or knowledge, giving solutions and providing valuable market insight will motivate your customers or potential clients and keep them engaged.
However you choose to boost your social presence, preparation is the key – once the foundations are in place, you can then begin to have fun and build your following.
Review your strategy regularly
It’s wise to have a look over your social media plan frequently, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the social media landscape is constantly changing.
Platforms change their offerings and algorithms fairly frequently. A recent example is LinkedIn’s algorithm showing users posts from three weeks ago on their feeds, something which has sparked a lot tongue-in-cheek posts. Keeping up with social media trends and tweaks is essential to being rewarded by the algorithm.
Not only that, your audience is likely to change too. New platforms come along (which younger users may flock to), your audience’s preferences and values will change or a scandal can turn audiences off of a particular network.
It’s also worth reviewing how your social media posts interact with one another. Is the branding consistent? Is the tone of voice appropriate for the platform?
You might want to add features to your offering like TikTok Shop if you feel your user base would benefit from having the option to purchase from there. You may also partner with another business and be able to create content geared towards their target users.
It’s essential to see what’s going well by using your analytics tools. If there’s a product or a type of social media post that’s doing well, do more of that, although make sure you don’t fatigue your followers with the same content over and over again. Meanwhile, reconsider the ones that aren’t working out so well. Perhaps there’s a way you can alter them to emulate the success of your other posts.
While you’re there, look at purging fake accounts and followers – it doesn’t necessarily have to be all about changing the strategy. And make sure you hide any comments from bots.
Reviewing your social media strategy and results every four to six months is a good idea. Any sooner and you’ll risk chopping and changing the content too frequently to be able to measure results.
Consider paid social ads
If you’re looking to give your profile a boost, ads can be a great way to improve your reach. Be sure to nail your objective before you pay for anything though: is it engagement? Leads? Or more followers?
Whatever you decide, this will affect the Call to Action (CTA) you associate with the advert.
Make sure you create an eye-catching advert (if it’s static) or mimic video content to not make it obvious that it’s an ad. And be sure to nail your targeting.
There are various advertising opportunities across social media platforms, but we’ve singled out TikTok for Business as a great option for small businesses.
It’s easy to setup and comes with campaign measurement tools so you can track how well your ads have done and measure the Return on Interest (ROI).
Right now, you can get additional ad credit relative to your spend for your first ad campaign:
- Spend $200 → get an additional $200 ad credit
- Spend $500 → get an additional $500 ad credit
Sign up to TikTok for Business
Further reading
