Running a small business is tough and you need to continuously develop and innovate to stand out from the crowd to make it as successful as possible. One of the biggest challenges that you face as a new business owner is gaining and retaining loyal customers. And with the current economic climate being incredibly challenging, getting more customers through the door is more important than ever before. 

This is usually played out through paid-for marketing such as promotional ads on social media, or advertorial pieces in key publications. Even though strategic and targeted paid marketing is incredibly beneficial to small business owners, it’s difficult to do well, as well as being costly. Without a marketing team behind you to constantly monitor, analyse and adapt, it might not get you the results you need. And with other areas such as accounting, invoicing and actually doing the day job taking up a lot of time, it’s understandable why paid marketing isn’t top of the priority list. 

This is why it’s so important to work on brand recognition. Especially through organic social media where you can both gain new customers and engage effectively with recurring ones. Social media can be a highly cost-effective and personable way of reaching customers, while also providing valuable insights into demographics, locations and what type of products customers prefer. 

Here are four tips to engage with your customers through organic social media:

1. Have a clear voice

It’s important to develop a consistent voice and tone within your social media presence – one that resonates with your audience and influences how they view your brand. Finding ways to relate and listen to your audience can drive loyalty and retention. 

Crucially, don’t be afraid to show a little personality and depth. This may be through understanding your company's identity and beliefs, showing off your team, being consistent throughout your brand messaging or even giving back to society in some way. Doing this can help present your business as adaptive, relevant and friendly.

2. Know your audience

If you want your social media to work for you, then you need to know your audience. Most social media management tools, like Hootsuite and Buffer, offer insights into your audience. This can be anything from demographics and location data, to which posts they like and share the most. This will help to inform new content to make sure you’re creating the type of posts your customers want to see and can help boost your engagement rates.

3. Integrate social listening

Social listening is when businesses take a wider view of customers’ opinions online about the brand and then use the information to improve the business. Social listening provides a broader view of customer sentiment and industry trends that may impact your brand and shows you where you sit within the marketplace. This, in turn, helps you understand the conversation surrounding not only your brand but competitors too and the products and services they offer.

4. Customer Feedback

Another way to retain your customers and adapt your social content and business is by taking customer feedback on board. This can be with organic social media or giving customers a platform to share their experiences. You can also run polls or quizzes or ask customers to leave feedback on products or services, to help gain insight into what they like about your brand and to help spread the word about your business more.

You can effectively market your company without spending money. Using organic social channels and communicating effectively with your customers can help drive awareness and retention for your business. Establishing and growing your brand's presence on a platform where people are already spending their time is a great way to help support and retain existing customers.