Large companies often have an easy time on social media. On the one hand, they benefit from a well-known and popular brand that attracts people. On the other hand, they have the appropriate budget to invest in creative staff, high-quality production, and purchased reach through sponsored posts.
The result: These companies reach many people and make money thus the corresponding commitment in terms of likes, shares, and comments. Small and medium-sized companies can often only dream of such results.
Because many SMEs are simply unknown. You work possibly only in a regionally limited area or serve a B2B niche, with which people have no contact in their everyday life. It is correspondingly difficult to get people enthusiastic about these products, companies, and services.
In addition, often the necessary know-how is missing to deliver quality content. Some companies even believe that they cannot offer any suitable content at all. The respective logic of social media channels is then all too often ignored and the feed cheerfully filled with advertising messages, as is the case with mailings, letters, or the website.
The problem with this: Nobody wants to be on social media with advertising content be confronted. Many people turn to social media for a little distraction or entertainment. We may also be looking for specific information. But advertising messages from companies only get in the way.
So other ways have to be found – and this is where our tip for small and medium-sized companies comes in!
Tip for SMEs: Be personal on social media!
Communicate personally from social media: Show the person behind the company.
Social media is to a large extent about identification. We follow brands because we feel we belong to them and see them as part of our lifestyle. However, such brand affiliation is usually reserved for large and global companies. However, there is a possibility to also create an identification area. One that global companies often cannot use at all.
You succeed as an SME, as much as possible, by being approachable and personal. Instead of a company, you give people on social media the opportunity to identify with the people behind it and their work. Because as a smaller company, you are more accessible to your customers than a large corporation could ever be.
Of course, this does not mean that you have to post your entire daily routine via an Instagram story in the future. Nevertheless, personality – and with it also authenticity )– is the ultimate strategy for the social media presence of SMEs.
Why is it so important to be personal on social media for SMEs?
There are various reasons why it is worth making your own social media channel more personal:
Good old voyeurism: We humans are curious creatures. Even if we would never admit it: we are interested in how other people live and what they do in their everyday lives. The interest in looking behind the scenes of a company is correspondingly high – as long as the impressions are realistic. Especially if their field of work differs significantly from our own.
Giving a face to the company: If you want to be more personal, come not around showing people. The people behind the company. This offers great potential for identification because we connect with other people rather than with a brand. So give your company one or more faces.
Creating sympathy and a positive connection: The relationship between people is (in most cases) much stronger than that between people to companies, products, or services. After all, it is easier for us to put ourselves in the perspective of other people and thus feel empathy and sympathy. These are particularly valuable currencies on social media.
You can use all these positive effects for yourself and your company. How exactly does this work? In the following, we will explain to you …
5 approaches for more personality on Social Media
1. Be brave and just do it
The top priority of social media is: Nothing risked, nothing gained. Too many SMEs shy away from using social media as a platform because they don’t know enough about it. They are afraid of making mistakes or simply testing it.
We want to let you in on a secret: Even the big companies and big players rarely have people in their circles who have studied social media. This is mainly due to the fact that the social media courses in Germany can be counted on one hand.
A lot of things have to be tried out, trial and error. Of course, you can prepare yourself with the appropriate specialist literature and should, if necessary, take the advice of an agency. In the end, you won’t be able to avoid just taking heart and trying it out! Because that’s the first step towards personal and authentic Communication.
2. Forget Perfectionism
As a small or medium-sized business, you are usually not a media professional. You often don’t have a multi-headed creative team behind you with the most modern equipment to produce posh content for you. And guess what? That’s totally okay.
Because everything you need for the production of good and personal content, you carry in your trouser pocket every day anyway: your smartphone. Because for photos or videos on social media, the quality of most reasonably current models (of the last 5 years) is easily sufficient. If you then get to grips with Instagram filters or free image editing apps like Snapseed, you will easily achieve sufficient quality.
But that’s not the point. On the social media playing field, you are lovable amateurs and you are welcome to tell that from the content. It doesn’t matter if your hand shakes a little while filming or if the photo was not shot perfectly according to all the rules of photography.
If you put personality as the core of your Social media strategy-Understand media communication, the imperfect is automatically part of it. Because the moment everything seems too smooth ironed out, the charm of the personal wears off and the users realize more clearly that this is a company after all.
So dare to let perfectionism out of the way!
3. Giving authentic insights into the company
The everyday work of many SMEs offers countless opportunities for exciting content. Anyone who runs a manufacturing or craft trade has what feels like a never-ending pool of content for social media. Because construction sites, small shops, or production processes are exciting topics.
So take the community with you to the construction site and present your current project. Show how you, as a craft business, install sanitary elements efficiently and sensibly. Give a real insight into the grape harvest in the vineyard on social media or let people participate in the dream of your own shop. Such everyday impressions are worth a lot and ideally show, in the sense of the Golden Circle, why you do your job the way you do passionately.
Even self-made product photos are part of the corporate personality.
In addition to these everyday insights, you can of course also your products and services or recruit employees. The same applies here: personality wins. So make short videos or take your own photos in which you present your new craft beer or show how your software solution simplifies everyday work.
Always remember: You are an expert in your field. So, if appropriate for the product, make explanatory videos that you put on YouTube or publish via social media. Present yourself as a person who wants to help other people. This is how you communicate on an honest and equal level.
Here are the most important sources for personal content to take away:
Authentic insights into everyday work
- Small, funny ideas (memes) with entertainment value (must be fun and engaging!)
- Honest presentations of products and services with your team
- Personal recruiting videos, in which you address your target group exactly
- Explanatory videos from people that pass on their know-how and help people
What you should avoid for a personal impression:
- stock photos
- Permanent advertising and PR messages
- Strong focus on company news and announcements
- Refurbished Glossy Content
- Graphics & Animations
You see: The biggest problem of SMEs is not missing content, but often the wrong content. A more personal perspective can help here!
4. Be regularly active with regular people
Identifying with people works best when you regularly see the same people.
Give your company one or more clear faces that also appear with their names. So you are no longer seen as an anonymous company without any personality.
It is accordingly important that you are regularly active on your channels and show yourself. Whether it’s just the management or a select group of colleagues who each stand for their specialist area – the only important thing is that there are clear faces with clear names that keep popping up.
5. Interact with the community
If you post relevant content and get reactions, it’s in the further process important to stay approachable. We’ve gotten used to the fact that celebrities or big brands don’t react to our queries. But if you want to be personal and authentic, you have to take the time for the community.
Community management is the magic word here. This means: If comments or messages come, you have to reply to them. Ideally, you should even use the names of the people who are on your Channels to see often and are therefore well known.
In short, you want to be personal and approachable, so you must accept and respond to your community’s messages and replies. By the way, this applies to both positive comments, which give you additional encouragement, as well as negative comments, which you sympathetically invalidate.
Communicate personally via social media
More personality and authenticity are the keys that ensure small and medium-sized companies a strong presence on social media. Have you neglected your channels so far or only fill them with the usual company news? Then now is the time to start incorporating personality into your social media strategy. In short: just start to communicate more personally! It will be worth it.
