A starting plan for social media marketing for small businesses run by one or two people. It covers choosing one goal and one platform, setting up a business account on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn from the platforms' own Help Centers, a weekly routine, how to measure results, and the FTC and platform rules that apply when a business promotes itself.
Social media marketing for small businesses can start with four things: one goal, one platform, a business account and a routine you can keep up alone. This plan uses the Small Business Administration's marketing-plan advice for goals and measurement, each platform's Help Center for account setup, and the FTC and platform rules that apply when a business promotes itself. Where a step is advice rather than an official instruction, it says so. This is general information, not legal advice.
Step 1: pick one goal and one platform
The SBA's marketing plan guidance asks you to describe your marketing and sales goals for the next year. Its examples of common goals are to "increase email subscribers, grow market share, or increase sales by a certain percent." For social media, a good first step is a goal you can count: messages, phone calls, bookings or email sign-ups.
Then choose where to start. An SBA blog post from 2016 advises businesses that cannot manage several accounts to invest in a few platforms. It is an old guest post, so treat it as a principle, not a platform guide. Our advice is to start with one platform and add a second only when the first has a routine. This table is advice, not an official ranking:
| If your customers are... | Start with |
|---|---|
| Local, and find businesses through neighbors and community groups | |
| Looking at your work or product: food, crafts, salons, trades, shops | |
| Happy to watch short videos from small brands | TikTok |
| Other businesses or clients of professional services |
None of the official pages we read for this plan says which platform is best for a small business, and none gives a statistic that would settle it.
Step 2: set up the business account
This section covers account setup on each platform. Everything below comes from each platform's Help Center, read on October 19, 2026. Menus change by device, region and account type, so use the steps as a guide.
- A Facebook Page is for businesses, brands and organizations to share updates and connect with people. You need a personal profile to create one, and information from your profile does not appear on the Page unless you share it.
- On a computer: click Pages on the left, Create Page, choose Public Page, Get Started, then add a Page name, a category and an optional bio.
- Meta's setup page says to add a phone number, website and email, and, if you have a physical location, an address and hours. You can add up to three more categories.
- Page Insights shows follows, views, reach and demographics. Meta's own advice is that Pages typically perform best when you reply to fans, post often and keep contact details current.
- Switch the account to a professional account of type Business. In the app: Profile, More, Settings and activity, Account type and tools, Switch to professional account, choose a category, then Business.
- Professional accounts cannot be private. They can show a Contact button and give you Insights on followers and posts.
- Instagram says professional accounts' posts and reels may appear in search engine results. Linking a Facebook Page is optional.
TikTok
- TikTok's Support Center says content that promotes your own business must have the content disclosure setting turned on. The post is then labeled Promotional content, which TikTok says does not affect its distribution. Without the setting, TikTok may remove or restrict the post.
- TikTok recommends the Commercial Music Library for content that promotes a business, because other licensed music does not cover commercial use.
- The TikTok Support Center pages we found for this plan do not give steps for switching to a business account, so none are given here.
- You need a LinkedIn account to create a Page. Pages are free, and the person who creates the Page becomes its super admin.
- Creating a Page is not supported on Android, only on desktop and iOS.
Step 3: a weekly routine for one person
This routine is advice. No official source gives a posting frequency or a time budget, so pick a number you can sustain, and scale the routine down to the time you have.
- Rotate three post types. Show the work (a job in progress, a finished order, how something is made). Answer a question customers keep asking. Show proof, such as a customer's own words used with their permission (see the rules below).
- Batch the work. Take photos and short clips in one session, then write the captions. The guides to scheduling on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn cover the steps. For ideas, see social media post ideas and video ideas. For Instagram image dimensions, see the Instagram post size guide.
- Answer comments and messages in a fixed daily window. Put your contact details and hours on the profile, so people who do not message can still find them.
Step 4: measure with what the platform gives you
Instagram Insights and Facebook Page Insights are built into the platforms. They report follower and audience information and how individual posts did. The SBA's guidance is to compare your marketing costs to the revenue they generate, to be consistent in how you measure, and to review the plan at least once a year.
Our advice is to track one number tied to your goal, such as the calls or bookings that mention social media. Add a line to your booking form or ask new customers how they found you. Likes and follower counts matter only if they move that number.
The rules that apply to your posts
The FTC states the basic rule: claims in advertisements "must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based." The SBA's marketing plan page adds that federal rules cover advertising for a number of consumer products, so check yours. Beyond that:
- Testimonials: the FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024. FTC staff say a business that publishes testimonials in its own marketing is disseminating them and can be liable if they are fake or false. Use real customers' words.
- Reviews and incentives: you can offer incentives for reviews as long as you do not require a particular sentiment, but failing to disclose the incentive could still violate the FTC Act. If family members review you, they should clearly disclose the relationship. Asking only customers you think are happy could also violate the FTC Act.
- Gifts and partnerships: if you give a creator free products or pay them, or a partner gives you something of value and you mention them, the FTC says to disclose it clearly in the post itself, in plain words such as "ad" or "sponsored," not only on a profile page, at the end, or behind a "more" button.
- Followers: do not buy fake followers. The FTC rule covers buying fake indicators of social media influence that you knew or should have known were fake.
- Negative reviews: you may reply publicly, but the FTC rule prohibits false accusations about the reviewer.
- Music: for posts that promote the business, choose music cleared for commercial use. TikTok says licenses outside its Commercial Music Library do not cover business use. Meta says its Instagram music library is for personal, non-commercial use, that some business accounts do not have access, and that its Sound Collection can be used commercially.
- Regulated industries: Meta limits targeting for ads about housing, employment and financial products. Real estate is covered in the real estate social media guide.
FTC staff guidance is not a safe harbor, and your state or industry may add rules. When a post is a close call, ask an advisor or attorney who knows your field.
What this plan leaves out
It covers organic posting only. Paid ads need separate setup and have their own platform policies. It also leaves out YouTube, Pinterest and X, which we did not read for this plan, and it uses no statistics, because the official pages we read give none and the figures on competing guides come from vendors or are undated.
Sources
Read on October 19, 2026:
- SBA, Manage your business: marketing and sales and SBA blog, Simple Social Media Guide for Small Businesses (2016)
- FTC, Advertising and Marketing Basics, Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: Questions and Answers and Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers
- Create a Facebook Page and Set up your Facebook business Page (Facebook and Meta Business Help)
- About professional accounts on Instagram and Set up a professional Instagram account
- Access to the licensed music library on Instagram (Meta Business Help Center)
- Create a LinkedIn Page
- Promoting a brand, product, or service and Commercial use of music on TikTok (TikTok Support)
Platform menus and rules change, so check the current page before you rely on a detail.