With over 75 percent of American adults using social media, connecting with them is important for small business owners. Here are some helpful tips for social media marketing as a small business.

Figure out your plan.

While it’s easy to get on social media and to start posting, you need a goal for what you want to achieve online. Otherwise you’ll just be wasting time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. Remember the acronym SMART when it comes to setting your social media marketing plan – your objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

Perform a competitive analysis.

During the time that you start planning your social media goals and objectives, make sure to find out what your competition is doing in the social media sphere. Not only does it help you speed up the learning process, but you can also find out what’s successful for other businesses by the types of posts that attract the most engagement.

Establish a social media calendar.

One of the biggest missed opportunities that many businesses experience on social media is scattered or inconsistent posting frequencies. Some companies post too often – sometimes multiple times per day – which is an easy way for your audience to tune out or unfollow your page, while other companies post infrequently to the point where your audience forgets that you exist. Coming up with a social media calendar will help you to consistently post the best content to your social media channels at the best times.

Use the 80-20 rule with social media: 80 percent of your content should be used to educate, inform, or entertain your audience, while 20 percent should be used to sell your brand or promote your products. For example, Twitter Business suggests the following for companies that use their platform. On Mondays, retweet a tweet your followers might find useful. On Tuesdays, ask your followers a question. On Wednesdays, create or use a relevant hashtag. On Thursdays, tweet an entertaining GIF. On Fridays, add a Twitter poll with a relevant question.

Collaborate with other local businesses.

Once you create a social media calendar, consider reaching out or cross-promoting another local business or website with a significant social media following. By sharing or retweeting a post, or making one telling your followers to support another business in your community, they will often return the favor and do the same for their followers, helping to increase your engagement and the size of your reach. This “collaboration” can also result in other opportunities to work together down the line.

Build and create relationships!