In the latest episode of Thank You, Come Again, we chatted with Adam Soorma, Head of Marketing and Guest Experience at Trace Brewing, one of our neighbors in Pittsburgh, PA. Adam chatted with us about the key to finding your target audience and creating a solid but manageable social media plan.
If you want to listen to the episode, you can do so here, but read on to learn more about what we gleaned from our conversation with Adam!
Engage your community with your social media
Trace Brewing does a really great job of connecting their social media outreach with the target audience of the people living in their neighborhood of Bloomfield in Pittsburgh. They focus a lot of energy on celebrating the unique characteristics of where they are, and they also know about the habit of their customers. For example, Trace is also open in the morning with coffee, so they know about the customers who come in for morning meetings or to get work done just as they do the folks who come in after work to have beers with friends or come to a dance party.
Put together a process for your small business social media marketing
Trace Brewing focuses their energy on only a few channels for social media - Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. While some businesses do well on LinkedIn or TikTok, Adam wants to make sure the strengths of the platforms they use complement Trace Brewing’s strengths of strong copy and visual elements.
Adam warns against doing social media in real time - you don’t want to be “hungry” for content and end up putting together something lackluster. This is why it’s important to think ahead and schedule your social media posts.
Organize your social media strategy into pillars
One way of making sure you don’t come up dry on social media is to organize the things you want to market about your business into pillars that you can always come back to. This allows you to rotate through different kinds of posts day by day and diversifies your social media calendar into something interesting and engaging.
For example, some of the pillars Trace Brewing falls back on are highlighting other businesses around them to lift up the community, spotlighting guests, focusing on staff, and more. Product, too, is an important pillar. Some businesses choose to focus just on their product, which is fine, but you don’t have to solely focus on it, either!
Focus on a story over selling
“In 2023, people are getting tired of being sold to,” says Adam. This is why he focuses a lot of Trace Brewing’s social media on the story around the brewery, rather than the beer that they sell.
For example, Trace Brewing has a vocational program to teach people how to brew and get real-world experience in the brewing industry - that’s a really great program to use for telling the story about the business. “Telling our vocational brewer, Natalie’s story while she’s holding a beer helps get the point across, but we don’t need to get to into the nitty gritty of the details and speak to a too narrow audience.”
Identify brands that you admire and find inspiration from them
When coming up with social media strategy, do a bit of research! Look into brands that are telling a similar story, or have messaging that captivates you. It doesn’t have to be a business in your industry or in your town - look at businesses completely unlike yours and see how they find their audience. Create a list of 4-5 brands you admire, and you can go back to them and iterate on what they’re doing.
How to create content without being a content creator
Adam notes that one way you can get stellar content for your business is by hiring talent to take quality photos and videos for your business, if you’re in a position to do so. Know what your strengths are when it comes to marketing, and outsource the things that you’re not as comfortable with - whether it’s photo, video, copywriting, or graphic design. Content creation takes a lot of time and energy, and if it’s not your strength, it might be better to outsource it.
Having a strong marketing plan can help grow your business
And Honeycomb can help finance that growth! Marketing and our process work hand in hand to find your investors in the community and get you the funding you need to grow. To learn more about Honeycomb, fill out the form below!