Intro to Social Media for SMEs... what works and what doesn't

Social media can't be ignored, it's an unmissable opportunity for growing businesses. It's also where a lot of marketing budgets go to die.

The difference between the two usually comes down to one thing: whether you started with a clear strategy or just started scatter-gun posting.

What can posting to social media do for you?

Before anything else, it helps to be clear about what social can and can't do for your business.

Social is fantastic for top-of-funnel brand awareness. Done well, it warms people up to your brand — they get to know your personality, your values, what you stand for. They start to trust you before they've ever bought from you.

But it's important to recognise that being entertained by your content doesn't mean someone is in the mindset to make a purchase. That requires an extra step(s) - many brands either skip that or get it wrong.

The step is called an off-ramp: a timely, genuinely tempting opportunity for your audience to go from passive follower to active prospect… a competition, free download of something genuinely useful, an exclusive offer, a chance to sample your offering, a seasonal reason your product is more tempting…. something that gives a warm audience a reason to take action.

Off-ramps require a bigger behavioural change from your audience, so they need to be good. A weak incentive at the wrong moment won't move anyone.

The rule before you start

Social is the most competitive place on the planet to try to stand out. People are there for information and/or entertainment — and they're ruthless about what they'll stop scrolling for.

The rule is simple: only commit to social when you have a genuinely clear idea of what content your brand can create that will appeal to your potential customers. Not the masses — your specific audience. You need to find a thing, a theme, that you can expand upon over time.

Going viral is a fantasy for most brands. When it happens, it's usually accidental, or occasionally because something went so badly wrong that people couldn't resist sharing it. That can be a strategy, but it's a bold one, and not right for most.

And remember: much of the branded content that looks effortlessly popular has a chunk of paid promotion behind it.

The platform question — where's my audience?

Not all social platforms are equal, and not all of them are right for your audience.

Instagram and TikTok skew younger, though both have growing older audiences. Snapchat skews very young. YouTube spans the widest age range of any platform. Facebook and Messenger are now predominantly older audiences.

Linkedin is the outlier — it skews heavily toward professional and business content, which makes it the most natural home for B2B brands.

For a detailed, research-backed breakdown of who is doing what on the internet in the UK, the Ofcom Online Nations Report 2025 is genuinely worth reading. Social media starts on page 33: Ofcom Online Nations Report 2025

What good social strategy looks like in practice

When we worked with a major UK telecoms brand on their social media, the starting point wasn't great. Their social profiles were dominated by customer complaints about broadband. But they also had a TV service, which carried all the UK's major channels, and they were the headline sponsor of The X Factor. That was the opportunity.

We built a full-time social operation: a dedicated team to get complaints handled and off the main feeds as quickly as possible, while we invested all the creative energy into TV and X Factor content — films, quizzes, opinion polls, things people actually wanted to engage with and share.

The result was a genuine shift in perception and sentiment, the brand went from being a boring internet service provider to a super-fan and purveyor of popular culture. And critically, that warmed-up audience then became the target for direct response digital advertising — campaigns that could be served warm rather than cold, to people who already had a positive relationship with the brand.

That's the chain you're building: awareness → affinity → action.

Don't make posting a nightmare…

Social posting isn't advertising - viewers are not looking for perfection - in fact it's often a bit of a turn-off. When you scroll through your feed if you see something that looks slick and branded, your brain goes ’It's an Ad, I'm not here for that‘ and you scroll on. There are exceptions - eg if it's a brand you love. Design your posts so they're easy to make - even fun to make! Viewers feed off energy.

The analytics you should be looking at

One of the great advantages of social and digital media is that everything is measurable. Make sure you use analytics.

But don't just look at views. Views tell you reach — they don't tell you whether your content is working. What you're looking for is engagement: are people reacting to your posts? How long are they watching your videos? Which moments in a video hold attention and which ones lose it? Are they sharing? Also look at impressions vs views - that will tell you if your initial hook eg thumbnails and titles are working.

Data tells you whether your content is actually connecting — and it's the feedback loop that helps you get better over time.

To pay or not to pay - when it makes sense and when it doesn't

There are no absolute rules with this stuff, each situation is different - here are some of the issues.

Paid social, boosting posts and for that matter all digital advertising can absolutely be used for brand awareness. The Meta platforms - Facebook and Instagram really limit brand's organic reach - but brands can still get great organic reach on eg TikTok, if they can strike a chord with their audience.

Organic social isn't free if you account for your time, it's resource intensive. Paying to expand your reach instantly is an option worth considering, but do it with open eyes, it won't make a bad post effective.

However if you’re using paid social as advertising (effectively digital ads) to drive direct sales, it can present a real challenge for low-value products. If the cost to acquire a customer through paid social is greater than the margin on what you're selling, the maths simply don't work long-term. That said - if you have a really popular low-value product which appeals to a younger demographic, TikTok is cheaper to advertise on than Facebook/Instagram/YouTube and it can stack up. On those other platforms, if you're confident in your product, there is an option to consider using ads in short bursts to get some market presence. eg if you're doing a launch offer and want awareness and combine that with an fantastic offer.

Where paid social/digital ads absolutely make sense is higher-value products, subscriptions, or anything with strong repeat purchase behaviour. The lifetime value of the customer justifies the acquisition cost.

The targeting capabilities of social platforms are incredible. They know an insane amount about their users’ behaviour — interests, behaviours, demographics, buying signals. You can target by age, sex, location, language and interests. You can build lookalike audiences based on your existing customers. You can retarget anyone who has already shown interest in your products. And of course you can now use AI to generate and test campaign creative - copy, images, remixes of your existing content. It's a rapidly changing landscape - it seems that once everyone is using AI like this, the playing field will level out again.

Influencer Marketing

Basically paying someone with a popular social profile to showcase your brand/products. It's the new form of celebrity endorsement. Great for giving your brand a genuine human/emotional context, making it real and desirable. Think hands-on sampling, unboxing, showing your product in action - and circulating promotional codes to induce potential customers.

The cost of big popular (macro) influencers has snowballed over recent years - and you'll be dealing with an agency. For smaller brands, who don't have tens of thousands of pounds to spend, and/or brands who are in a niche sector - there is also the micro-influencer route… 10-100k followers. These do not all have agents, although there are micro-influencer agencies, some who will give you a list for you to follow up on, so they save you time on hunting them out yourself. Micro-influencers are much cheaper, often have excellent engagement from their followers and they'll often try really hard for you.

The key with influencers is to make very sure their audience is a good match for yours. It's also worth checking what the engagement is like on their profiles, particularly when they do promotional posts. You want to make sure the placements have a narrative which is engaging for the audience - good influencers are masters of this… it's what they do.

Earned media and lead generation…

Two underrated benefits of social:

Earned media. Journalists, TV researchers, YouTubers and creative agencies are constantly scanning social for stories and talent. A brand with a genuine social presence and a clear point of view will occasionally find itself picked up and amplified for free. That's the holy grail — coverage you didn't pay for, reaching audiences you couldn't have bought.

Email capture. Social can be an excellent lead generation tool if you have something genuinely worth offering - a competition, a useful PDF guide, exclusive access to something. That's your off-ramp, and the prize isn't just a sale — it's an email address. Email marketing is virtually free, highly targeted, and reaches people who have already shown interest in what you do. A healthy email list is one of the most valuable marketing assets a business can own.

Where to start your social media journey…

If you're an SME thinking about social media, here's our starter checklist:

Start with strategy,don't just pile in posting. What content can your brand genuinely create that your specific audience will value? If you can't answer that clearly, posting more won't help. Research and browse your chosen platforms lots and see what sort of content performs well.

Make sure creating posts isn't a total ball-ache - if it is it'll show in your posts and you'll find reasons not to do them.

Pick one or two platforms and do them properly rather than spreading thinly across five. Where does your audience actually spend time? Don't pile in with the ambition of doing a post a day - start with a couple a week and build.

Build your off-ramps from day one. Form ideas to test how you're going to convert warm followers into leads or customers - don't leave it as an afterthought.

Watch your analytics obsessively. Not vanity metrics - engagement, watch time, what's working and what isn't. It's highly unlikely you'll get it right straight away - be prepared to review, experiment, refine, even rethink.

Only boost posts that start doing well. Don't spend money boosting every post you do, you'll know fairly quickly if a post is popular or not - if it is, consider paying to expand your reach.

Set limits on your time - don't ignore the rest of your marketing/sales effort and expect social to do all the lifting.

Look for influencers - their audience and your budget are key factors.

And for the day-to-day content creation and community management? Our advice: employ a young person. Someone with bags of energy, who lives on social platforms, understands the culture, and can move at the speed social requires. It's one of the best investments a growing business can make.

At 100000 Hours we can help you build your social strategy, define your content direction and style, and make sense of your analytics. We have a heap of experience creating film, animation & video content too. We're not paid social/digital ads specialists — but we know people who are, and we'll point you in the right direction. Email us to talk through where to start.