Small Business Social Media Tactics to Leave in 2023

Making an impact on the social media space as a small business can seem daunting sometimes. You know that you’re supposed to have a logo. You know you’re supposed to post about sales. And you know that you’re supposed to hop on “trends.”

Well—wait a minute. What’s that thing your mom used to say? “If your best friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”

There are some trends in small business social media marketing that I’ve seen sneaking into 2024 that aren’t helpful. A lot of times people write about things to “leave in 2023” and it’s just because they’ve moved on to the newest, shiniest new trends. They’re not always very nice about it, either.

Now, I’m a little sassy. But when I blog about social media and small business marketing, I’m not writing to be mean. This isn’t an episode of What Not to Wear, and I’m not writing because now we’re into sparkles, not sequins, or feathers, not fringe.

As a fellow small business owner, I know that it’s tempting to find the social media “hacks” that promise quick growth. But as a social media professional, I also know social media best practices and I’m just looking out! Social media marketing isn’t as simple as you might think at first blush, and it’s certainly not quick.

So what are some tactics you might be tempted to use that might not be serving you in the long run?

Tagging @followers in the comment section on your posts

There are pages I manage that are tagged DAILY in comments like this. Someone managing a small business social media account (maybe the owner themselves) feels like they’re being “shadowbanned” or it seems like no one is interacting with their posts, so just to make sure everyone sees their post, they send everyone in their follower list a notification.

If you have to beg your followers to pay attention to your posts, it’s time to level up your content and give them something exciting to look at.

Hard truth #1: It’s not on your followers to engage with your content, it’s on you to create engaging content that your followers want to engage with.

The consequence

You’re more likely to lose followers doing this because they will get annoyed being tagged all the time just to see normal posts.

What to do instead

Create engaging content that encourages people to take action on your post without your prompting. Try a poll, a pun, or educational content within your niche. Use calls-to-action in your post specifically that encourage a specific behavior like commenting, sharing, or reacting a certain way to boost engagement in an organic way.

Asking your friends to “invite all”

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Maybe you yourself have been invited to like a Facebook page you’ve never heard of by a friend you hardly know in the last few weeks. Maybe you have a good attitude and go ahead and like the page in the name of supporting a fellow small business, but here’s something you need to know: not everyone is going to receive that as warmly.

Asking your friends to help you out in this way may harm your image as a brand. It may make your friend’s friends annoyed at your friend. Sharing that post doesn’t convey confidence in your value as a brand or in the success of your marketing.

Maybe you don’t care what people think. I love that for you. We all should be more like that. But the reasons to avoid this tactic go beyond just how it looks. There is actually a deeper reason why this isn’t a good idea.

Your social media accounts should be about cultivating community with your target audience.

If you’re a local lawn maintenance business in Illinois, you don’t need followers in Boston. If you’re a women’s healthcare brand, you don’t need Joe Schmoe following you.

In fact, not only do you not need those followers, you don’t want those followers.

“Wait, what?” you might be thinking, “I don’t discriminate! I want all the followers! More followers = more credibility and prioritization in the algorithm. I don’t care that they’re not going to buy my services or product—that’s fine—but why don’t I want them following me?!”

Hard truth #2: Building a following made up of people who aren’t your target audience will lower your engagement and could actually impact your standings with the algorithm.

The consequence

Think about it: if you have people who see your posts but don’t resonate with them in any way, are they more or less likely to interact with it? Obviously, less likely. They won’t like, comment, share, or any of that, because they don’t care about what you have to offer. And, frankly, that’s if they even stay following you for long. When engagement goes down, your standing in the algorithm suffers.

What to do instead

Focus your attention on serving the community you already have. When trying to get followers to join your community, follow best practices for organic account growth. Some specific ideas to try: post when users with similar interests are active on the platform (this works especially well for IG), use trending sounds/audio/hashtags when appropriate, and hop on the bandwagon when memes come around. You can also experiment with follower-based giveaways, but be prepared that sometimes this results in a loss of followers after the giveaway is over.

Using #hashtags just to #usethem

“Just a minute. You just said use trending hashtags!”

The operative word is trending. There are two extremes in the hashtag realm, both of which I see all the time and cause problems.

1 - Using hashtags that are so broad they’re contributing nothing to post visibility. The hashtag #photographer has 260 MILLION occurrences. It’s a needle in a haystack situation—your post is the needle, the 260 million posts labeled #photographer is the haystack.

2 - Using hashtags that are so specific that they’re contributing nothing to post visibility. #Marriedforthirtyfiveyearsandstillsoinlove or #iatesomuchevenmystretchypantsdontfit are pointless because nobody is looking for those hashtags. Even less outrageous examples like #weserveMiamisbestshrimpcocktail just…don’t serve you or your business.

Hard truth #3: Hashtags do not a social media strategy make.

The consequence

Burying your post in the social media haystack reduces the likelihood of the algorithm picking that post up and showing it to people who follow that hashtag. On the other hand, you need to use hashtags that people follow or even if the algorithm picks it up (it won’t), nobody will see it. There are also plenty of “banned” hashtags that certain platforms restrict to limit post reach due to increased risk of troubling content associated with them—and some of them are pretty innocuous. Hashtags are a tool and need to be handled responsibly.

What to do instead

Do hashtag research! There are paid services available that will help you choose the right hashtags for your posts and give you the stats on whether certain hashtags are good or bad ideas, but you can also just test some out and see how many posts each hashtag has.

Something else to keep in mind is that certain platforms (like Facebook) really don’t need hashtags at all, and even on platforms that historically have relied on hashtags, their relevance is fading. The reason for this is that many algorithms now rely on the caption for SEO relevance and keywords can be picked up just from the copy—even the in-platform closed captions.

Using your personal page as a business page

I haven’t seen as much of this lately, but one area in which it’s a common practice is in multi-level marketing organizations that rely on the individual members to both sell the product and create a down-line.

In a way, it’s genius. You already have an established presence with a built-in audience that trusts you because they know you. That built-in audience is also somewhat a captive audience because if they don’t want to see your promotional posts, they have to actually restrict or unfriend you, and they probably don’t want to do that, especially if they are close or long-standing friends. So they will put up with it, and your posts will continue to get seen.

However, and this is a big “however”—they won’t be happy about it. This kind of goes back to what I said in both the first and second points above.

You don’t want people to buy from you because you wore them down anymore than you want the person you like to finally go out with you because they got tired of you asking. It’s not a good look for you or for your business.

Additionally, on your own personal page, you’re posting about cookware to a friends list that likely includes mechanics who don’t know the first thing about cooking and busy professionals who don’t have time to cook. You’re posting about essential oils to an audience that probably includes nurses and doctors who roll their eyes when they see your posts.

And, for Pete’s sake, please stop sending DMs to people trying to start conversations that will end in a pitch. It’s 2024 and people aren’t falling for that anymore. Your friends want to be seen as your friends, not as an opportunity for you to make money.

Hard truth #4: Your personal life and your business life deserve their own time in the spotlight. Not everyone in your life needs to know or should know about what’s going on in the other sections of your life.

The consequence

This consequence is more personal and less marketing-loaded. The consequence here is having friends who think about unfriending you every time they scroll past another post for that skincare line or tea blend. Another pitfall that I think can be even more disconcerting is the potential for people that you know through your business that you’ve never met in real life seeing the more personal things you post, like pictures of your kids and geo-tagged posts about where you’re getting coffee.

What to do instead

Make a business page. You can run this page as if it’s your personal page if you want to, posting random things in addition to your promotional content, but keep your true personal page free from things that sell. I very rarely even reshare my own business page’s content as my personal page—it’s good to keep them separate from each other for the health of your relationships.

Tagging people

Some people don’t stop at the tagging in a comment thing. Particularly for small business owners who use their own personal social media accounts to market for their business, the ability to tag people in the post itself becomes a part of their posting strategy.

Now: TO BE VERY CLEAR, this isn’t about you tagging the people who are in the photo with you or the businesses with whom you’re collaborating…those are all perfectly acceptable and smart choices for your social media.

As a tactic, small business accounts on social media try this for a couple of reasons. One, to make sure people who might enjoy the content see the content, much like that @everyone tag in the comment section. Another reason small businesses might do this is because they know that then those people’s friends will see the post because it will show up in their timelines as “So-and-so was tagged,” theoretically expanding their reach.

You don’t need to be tagging everyone and their mom in your posts on the regular. If you know someone on your friends list would really appreciate the post, or if they would maybe want to reshare it with their followers, you can always share the post to them via a link in an email or a DM, but maybe only do that if you know that person really well and you know how they’ll react.

Hard truth #5: You should only tag pages and users in your posts who are actively involved with whatever is going on with that post.

The consequence

People who know will know that you’re using their page and their audience to try to get you more attention. It’s not a great look for you or your small business. Plus, when you might have a legitimate reason for tagging them, it could become a boy who cried wolf situation and they delete the tag without even looking at it.

What to do instead

Most of the time, this tactic is used because the small business in question has a circle of people or pages that they view as a sort of community-within-the-community. So make a Facebook group associated with your business page and invite these people to the group. If you want to directly touch people, take the time to create a space where you can mutually exchange interesting tidbits, ideas, or events. People will love, trust, and respect that more than constantly being tagged in things they aren’t actually a part of.

2024: Where we go from here

No matter what your business, how you use your social media accounts is, well, your business. But keep in mind that how you use it does impact your brand. How do you want people to think of your business? What do you want them to feel when they interact with your business or your content?

We’re coming to the end of the first month of the year. Now is a great time to take a look at the tactics you’ve picked up over the last several years of managing your business online on social media and decide what you’re going to level up and what is going to stay in the past.

Social media pros—anything you’d add to this list? Let me know on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram! I’d love to hear your thoughts.