Local Social Media Marketing for Regional Businesses

1. How, as a company, do you address a local target audience?
2. Which platform is the right one?
3. 3 examples of successful local social media strategies
4. 3 tools that are useful for local social media marketing
5. Conclusion

Reaching a local target audience? Social media is almost perfect for this. Social networks offer businesses numerous opportunities to drive local marketing and reach potential customers locally.

Which channels are most sensible for local social media marketing? How does a regional company engage directly with its customers? How do you build a local (fan) community? These questions will be answered by our guest author Luise Deschl in her following article. You will also learn why social media is indispensable for local businesses - no matter whether you offer local services or products.

How, as a company, do you address a local target audience?

Local social media marketing gives you direct access to the target audience of your location. With the right strategy and the crucial success factor of continuity, you build a local community that you can regularly supply with current information, offers, and news from your business.

What should companies pay attention to if they want to reach a local target audience? Here are 5 tips on how local businesses can best use regional social media marketing:

1. Use local hashtags and location tags

By using local hashtags of your city or region, you can reach people from the direct vicinity, as your target group usually follows these hashtags. The best way to do this is to do a hashtag search and find out which local hashtags are relevant for your business. Search for your location in the search bar of the respective platform and see directly how many posts have already been posted under the respective hashtag. Per post, you should use about 3-5 suitable hashtags of different sizes. Also, use the location tag in your posts and stories. The algorithm can then play your posts to more people from your region.

Local hashtags and location tags of the city of Regensburg

2. Speak the language of your local target audience

Address your target audience in the right tonality! This means that you pick up on the dialect of your city or region and use common terms. You can also use local insider jokes or address issues that are currently moving your city or region. Memes are very suitable for this, for example. It is important that your posts hit the nerve of your local community. To know what your target group is interested in, you can start surveys or directly engage with your customers.

Posting Hamburg insider tip

3. Rely on local collaborations

#SupportyourLocals - not just a motto that emerged during the pandemic, but a sensible strategy for social media. Network with other companies from your region and rely on shared content on social media. This way, you can kill several birds with one stone: You expand your current target group with other relevant contacts from the region, save resources in content creation, and pick up exciting new topics that you might not have addressed so far. Cooperate with another company from your city or region that addresses a similar target audience.

4. Build a network with local content creators or influencers!

People follow people - especially on social media, you can reach your own target audience most easily via personal accounts. Therefore, network with people from your city or region who already have a high local reach. These can not only bring you additional reach and new followers but also support you in content creation, as their content is usually more authentic and accessible than your own company content. In the article about Creating successful influencer campaigns, you can find out what you should pay attention to when working with influencers.

UGC (User-Generated Content) is a good way to work resource-efficiently. For example, you run a restaurant or café and regularly receive tags on the posts of your guests? Great, then use these contents and share them on your account! This not only gives you additional social proof but also saves you the creation of your own content and at the same time honours your guests who will appreciate a free shoutout.

When using UGC, make sure to handle it with particular appreciation by thanking the creators and tagging them on your posts, mentioning them in the text or reposting customer stories with a thank you message. If you haven't received any UGC yet, get creative and think about how you can create incentives for the creation of UGC.

Brand ambassador programs at a local level offer a great opportunity. You build a local fan base that will in turn tell their friends and acquaintances about your business. Word of mouth should not be underestimated at a local level! 

5. Rely on local ads

Due to the local targeting possibilities, ads on social media are an important tool to be locally visible. You can narrow down the radius to about 15 km and play your ads directly to the people in your immediate vicinity. Not only the technical setting in the ad manager is sensible for a local targeting, but also your ad texts or ad formats. A direct and personal approach is a relevant means to attract the attention of the right target group. Be creative in your ads and, for example, use insider knowledge that only your local target group has. This way you're guaranteed to grab the attention of the target person!

Which platform is the right one?

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok - there are many channels that are interesting for building a local community. Always remember to use your resources as effectively as possible. It is more sensible to focus on one or a maximum of two platforms and play them properly than to be present on all channels with poor or irregular content.

Instagram - the platform for building a local community

Instagram is ideally suited for building a local community thanks to its various formats. With the location tag, content can be found directly via the search for a specific place and assigned.

Local hashtags also ensure a high local reach on Instagram. Especially for restaurants, bars, local retailers, and service providers such as hairdressers, car dealerships, etc. a strategic appearance on Instagram is worthwhile. Because on this platform everything revolves around aesthetics - which is why high-quality and appealing visual content is incredibly relevant. Through the stories, companies can engage directly with end customers, start surveys, and thereby gather valuable feedback or refer to up-to-date changes. Instagram is therefore an all-round talent for addressing the local target audience!

Location tag Vienna

TikTok - the search engine for Gen Z

TikTok is no longer just the platform for funny dance and lip sync videos. For the GenZ, TikTok has become a search engine in recent years where they look for local businesses, places, and other creators in their city. On TikTok, you also currently have the opportunity to stand out from the crowd, as relatively few local businesses include TikTok in their communication strategy. TikTok now also has location tags. Use these to reach more people nearby.

Facebook - the platform for events and groups

Even if the legitimacy of Facebook in the social media cosmos is now critically questioned by many users, there are still some relevant features of Facebook that bring a great advantage, especially for local businesses. Classic Facebook events are suitable for promoting events and gatherings nearby. These can also be combined with regional Facebook groups. The next time you host an event in your city or region, why not share the event in thematically suitable Facebook groups from the area. This way, the event gets directly to your target group.

LinkedIn - reaching regional decision-makers and professionals

Especially in B2B social media marketing LinkedIn is an interesting platform to gain regional visibility. The platform is particularly suitable for addressing new potential customers and expanding your personal network. LinkedIn is a business platform, so you should focus on information and added value here. You can search LinkedIn's search bar specifically for interesting decision-makers and leaders from your area.

3 examples of successful local social media strategies

You're wondering what successful local social media marketing looks like in practice? These 3 examples will show you what is possible.

1. Edeka Dirnberger

Getting regional visibility as an EDEKA family business? The example of Edeka Dirnberger shows that this is possible. With over 5,600 followers on Instagram and over 8,800 followers on TikTok, Edeka Dirnberger focuses on appealing to people from the region and entertains the community with shopping and saving tips, funny videos from the markets or with the current offers of the week.

Instagram profile Edeka Dirnberger

TikTok profile Edeka Dirnberger

2. Volksbank Mittelhessen

As one of the most successful banks on TikTok & Co., Volksbank Mittelhessen has built up a large community on social media in a short time. On Instagram, Volksbank Mittelhessen has over 15,000 followers, on TikTok, it has over 42,000. The funny and crazy videos on TikTok are contrary to the classic trusted bank image. The example of Volksbank Mittelhessen shows: self-irony is well received and is rewarded in the long term with high (local) visibility.

Instagram profile Volksbank Mittelhessen

TikTok profile Volksbank Mittelhessen

3. ALAVU Restaurant

A restaurant in a small town with just over 8,400 inhabitants has 3,600 followers on Instagram? Yes, it's possible! The ALAVU Restaurant from Nittenau is a good example of how social media marketing works as a restaurant: Stories with reservation notes and announcement of special promotions, entertaining content in the form of reels and appealing photos of delicious food. The community is thrilled and gives the restaurant new reach in the form of stories from their visit or through numerous reservations via Instagram.

Instagram profile ALAVU Restaurant from Nittenau

3 tools that are useful for local social media marketing

There are numerous possibilities to implement social media marketing for regional companies as efficiently and budget-friendly as possible. Especially important is a good planning of the content, so that it hits the nerve of the target group and your goals are achieved. You can use some Social Media Software & Tools, like:

• Canva Pro: for creating graphics and creative posts or stories. Canva is already very helpful in the free basic version. In the Pro version, Canva is even more fun when working with colleagues.
• Facebook Creator Studiofor the automated publishing of pre-planned posts and stories. The Creator Studio provided free of charge by Meta offers you the opportunity to publish continuously by planning ahead.
• Notion: For collecting content ideas and creating shooting plans, Notion is a great all-round tool that also works well when working with external parties.

You can find more tips on how to create social media content as time-efficiently as possible in the article on Content Stress: How to create social media content time-efficiently on OMR Reviews.

Conclusion

Don't forget that as a local business, you should also utilize other opportunities in your marketing mix. Offline marketing and local SEO, for example, are just as important to be visible within a local community and form the foundation for your successful social media marketing.