Social media marketing for small business

In short

Choose one or two platforms where your customers actually spend time, and do them well.
Post to be useful, show your work and show the people behind the business - not just to sell.
A short weekly routine beats bursts of activity followed by silence.
Small paid boosts aimed at your local area often work better than chasing organic reach.
Paid, gifted or sponsored posts must be clearly disclosed, and reviews must be genuine.

You don’t need to be everywhere. Pick based on where your customers are and what suits your business:

Platform	Often works well for
Facebook	Local services, community-based businesses, events, older audiences; local groups and Marketplace
Instagram	Visual businesses: food, fashion, beauty, design, trades showing finished work
LinkedIn	Professional services, B2B, recruiting, building personal credibility
TikTok	Products and services that suit short, entertaining or behind-the-scenes video; younger audiences
YouTube	How-to and explainer videos that people search for; long-lasting content

Start with one or two. Claim your business name on the others so nobody else can, but don’t feel obliged to post there.

Most posts should help, show or connect, not just sell. A useful mix:

Show your work: before-and-after photos, finished jobs, new products, behind the scenes.
Help: quick tips, answers to common questions, how-tos.
People: you, your team, your customers (with permission), your community.
Proof: reviews, testimonials, milestones, awards.
Offers and news: new services, events, specials, about one post in five.

Use real photos and short videos from your phone. They usually outperform polished stock images.

Plan (15 minutes, once a week): decide two or three posts for the week from your mix.
Capture as you go: take photos and short clips during your normal work.
Post at times your audience is active (your platform’s insights will tell you).
Respond daily: reply to comments and messages quickly. Responsiveness is often what wins the customer.
Review monthly: what got enquiries? Do more of that.

Scheduling tools, including the free ones built into most platforms, let you batch posts in one sitting.

Organic reach is limited on most platforms, so a small budget can go a long way:

Boost your best-performing posts to people in your local area.
Run simple ads with one clear offer and a call to action (Book now, Get a quote).
Target carefully: location, age range and interests. Avoid broad audiences.
Measure enquiries and sales, not likes.

See Advertising options compared for how social ads fit with other channels.

Local creators and niche experts can introduce you to an engaged audience:

Choose creators whose followers match your customers, and check their engagement looks genuine.
Agree in writing on what they’ll create, when, payment or products, and who can reuse the content.
Paid, gifted or sponsored content must be clearly disclosed as advertising. Both your business and the creator are responsible for not misleading people.

Reply to reviews and comments, positive and negative, calmly and promptly.
Move complaints to private messages or a phone call, then follow up publicly if it’s resolved.
Never post fake reviews, pay for reviews, or delete genuine negative reviews to mislead people. These practices can breach the Australian Consumer Law.

Turn on multi-factor authentication on every social account.
Register accounts with a business email address, not a staff member’s personal one.
Give helpers their own access through the platform’s business tools, rather than sharing your password.
Be wary of messages claiming your page will be deleted unless you click a link. These are common scams.

Followers and likes are signs of attention, not results. Track:

enquiries, bookings and sales that came from social media (ask new customers how they found you),
clicks to your website,
messages received,
which types of posts lead to these, so you can do more of them.