Written by Haoyu Su, Fall Intern

Since 2010, social media becomes a vital battleground for different sizes of businesses to compete. Traditional media has usually been occupied by giant companies to promote their products and services. Fortunately, social media platforms enable business owners to enhance their reputation no matter what size of business they own. Trends are the innermost part of the nature of social media platforms. The algorithms built within different social media applications share the same feature which is to recommend users with updated information and content that would satisfy their interests.

Equal chance for every player means it is crucial to play right. In order to shine on this capricious stage, an analysis is substantial to make before every promotion. Business owners need to figure out what is the intersection between their products and ongoing trends. It is analogous to surfing with the huge tides. People need to find the right perspective and timing to cut in in order to catch the wave. And an appropriate trending promotion requires understanding on both sides of the business which is established on an analysis. 

Sometimes it would be outdated if business owners just follow the trends instead of making their own predictions. Owing to the size of small businesses displayed, they do not usually respond quickly or adjust their strategies immediately after something goes viral on social media. It would be helpful if small business owners could keep their eyes on what’s going on in the range of their target customers. By doing so, they would have a comprehensive understanding of the tastes and interested of the potential customers they want to attract. Therefore, thorough apprehension of customer preferences would make small business owners make predictions and quick responses. Since the size is not huge, they could make adroit and corresponding changes quickly if they have realized where the trend is taking place. 

Finding the right audience to promote is also important to think about when small business shifts their focus to social media. Like traditional media, social media also has its own divergence. The young generation would not spend a huge amount of time browsing Facebook. Figuring out different features of each media platform would help business owners to promote their products and services in an accurate and efficient way. Besides the demographic information about users, small business owners should also think about whether the features of their products are proper to be displayed on certain social media platforms. A video talked about how good a sports water bottle is might be good to be displayed in a video format which should be posted on TikTok or YouTube instead of Instagram or Facebook which are picture-oriented.

Despite the benefits social media platforms could bring to small businesses, the owners need to think about the method and channel they are going to choose when they try to bring their promotions online. A powerful tool like social media platforms could only maximize its full potential to energize small businesses when it is used in a proper way.