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While we’re all comfortable with managing our personal social media, posting for your business is a great way to connect with new and existing customers, share special offers and drive sales. Posting engaging stuff can keep your brand top of mind and grow your following fast. Haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon yet? It’s time to get on board. We’ve asked three Square sellers who are rockstars on social some questions about how they approach it. So if you’re new to social media, read on for some tips on how to get started.
Lauren and Elena from Those Girls sell delicious iced teas and ciders from their market stall at festivals and events around Victoria. They have over 10,000 followers across social media and are popular for their bright and bubbly images.
Which social media channel is most important to you? How did you decide which one to start with?
Those Girls started on social media with Instagram and Facebook. From there we branched out to Twitter and more recently we have started using Periscope which is proving to be very fun — maybe our new favourite! We have a soft spot for Instagram. It’s such a visual channel and works really well with our product and the fresh ingredients we use. It’s true that people like to eat with their eyes. We also love how interactive Facebook can be, and it creates a nice platform to receive feedback and enquiries from customers.
Square seller Rocco & Coe is managed by Damo, who posts to over 1,300 Instagram followers for this popular panini, juice and coffee bar in Port Melbourne. Damo often engages his customers in posts to showcase Rocco & Coe’s fun and friendly business and team.
How has Rocco & Coe grown its social media following so quickly?
We’ve worked hard to establish a social media following which grows daily. We post a minimum of three times a day — for our morning trade, our lunch trade and our afternoon trade which encourages customers to be visiting us more than once. We also always include trending hashtags in our industry and our business name. The more hashtags we have on our posts, the greater chance people have of discovering our page. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and just have fun with it. That’s what small business is all about.
Kerry and Jeff from Hunters’ Roots in Melbourne run their own organic juice and salad bar, serving healthy lunch options and juices made with fresh, local produce. Their small business is new, and they’re using social media to quickly build a name locally.
How often do you post on social media? Is it important to be posting all the time, or just when you’ve got something interesting to say?
We think it’s important to be posting regularly, given that social media helps drive the exposure further than our own capabilities of reach. We try to post whenever we can, while mixing up content to include new menu ideas and capturing moments in Hunters’ Roots cafe, plus news from our business in other media. Especially for a new small business like ourselves, social media is a fun way to connect with like-minded groups, and it provides us a platform to interact with innovative businesses (such as Square!) We try not to bombard our followers with irrelevant posts, but keep a good balance of informative and visually attractive pictures — people eat with their eyes after all!
Want to be social with Square? We’re posting small business tips and tricks daily. Join the conversation with us on Twitter and Instagram.
