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Social Media Guide for Small Businesses

How to use social media to grow your business, save time, and stay competitive

As a small business owner and entrepreneur, you’re busy driving the business forward. Any extra time and resources you may have are spent on high-value activities that will have the biggest impact on your bottom line.

We’ve spoken with many small business owners in your position who are driving real business impact with social media—from increased brand recognition, sales, and customer loyalty, to reduced marketing spend. From these discussions, we’ve uncovered trends in how entrepreneurs use social media and Hootsuite to grow their business, manage time and resources, and stay competitive.

Download the “Social Media Survival: A Guide for Small Business Owners” eBook to discover:

How to make the most of your limited time and resources

  • Where to begin on social media and tips to get you started

  • Three features that will help save you time and resources—and get organized

  • Success story: How one food truck owner uses Hootsuite to improve daily communications

How to grow your business and drive sales

  • How social media can help grow your business

  • Three features that will help you drive new sales and leads

  • Success story: How Five Guys burger restaurant uses Hootsuite to reach customers and expand into new markets

How to stay competitive and manage your reputation

  • How to listen and learn from your customers, competitors, and industry

  • Three features that will help your small business stay competitive

  • Success story: How Fairware uses Hootsuite to enhance their brand reputation and maintain transparent conversations

For the truck’s first three years, I did all of the social ‘à la minute’ meaning ‘live.’ That took 4 to 6 hours a day and consumed my life, making it harder to run my business. Since [adopting] Hootsuite, we schedule our Tweets and posts beforehand. We’ve expanded to include several cities and Hootsuite helps manage multiple cities and social profiles—doing this separately would be laborious and ineffective.

—Dave Danhi, CEO, founder, and chef at The Grilled Cheese Truck

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