We all have seen and experienced hyperlocal social media marketing. You enter your local bookshop, browse a couple of books, put them back on shelves, and leave the store. But the next morning, or even later the same night, you start to see ads about books all over your social media.
Well, that’s how hyperlocal marketing works. And as you can guess, it is extremely powerful.
Hyperlocal social media marketing is a great way to build stronger bonds with your customers and eventually create more leads and sales.
By targeting your marketing efforts to people who live in your area, you can connect with them on a more personal level and increase your brand awareness.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss what hyperlocal social media marketing is and how you can use it to grow your small business or even your well-established one. We’ll also provide some tips for creating an effective local social media marketing strategy.
So if you’re ready to learn more about this powerful marketing strategy, keep reading!
Table of Contents
What is Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing?
Hyperlocal social media marketing is a highly targeted and effective approach that brands use to engage with a specific, geographically focused audience via social platforms. The goal of hyperlocal marketing is to attract and engage audiences from a certain location to derive more sales and conversion.
Using social media makes hyperlocal marketing not only an effective method but also a cost-efficient one. That’s why many local businesses invest in it.
but the benefits of hyperlocal marketing using social media go beyond the brick-and-mortar stores. Even well-known brands that have an international audience use it to build stronger bonds with their community and increase their brand awareness.
Main components of hyperlocal social media marketing
Generally, here are the main components of hyperlocal social media marketing:
- Geo-targeted Ads
- Geo tags
- Localized content
- Engagement with local communities
- User-Generated content
- Reviews and recommendations
- Real-time engagement
Keep reading to find out how you can use each of these components to grow your business.
Why Is Hyperlocal Marketing on Social Media Important?
76% of users buy something they see on social media platforms.
In a world where the physical boundaries have been lifted by the Internet, marketing for a specific geographic area might not seem like a very wise choice but hold your horses.
Even though you can access a global target market literally using your fingertips on your mouse, hyperlocal marketing on social media should still be a high priority. Here’s why:
Social media algorithms favor local results
The results that you see on social search engines partially depend on your location.
Now, we have all heard of the mysterious algorithms of social platforms. In fact, no one knows how they exactly work, but we can make pretty much exact guesses based on our experiences and use this fact for our hyperlocal marketing strategies.
To test this, pick up your phone right now and simply search for “coffee” on Instagram or any other social platform. You are actually doing a local search and the chances are that you’ll see a combination of these factors in your results:
- Pages that you probably followed that are about coffee;
- Accounts with considerable following somehow related to coffee,
- and finally, some coffee places in your neighborhood!
For example, if you search “coffee” near Vienna, here’s what you’ll probably see:
In fact, 27.9% of people use social media to find inspiration for things to do and buy. Local SEO and hyperlocal marketing on social media are all about optimizing your social media business profile to be among the top results for people who are searching for your products and services.
Increased brand awareness in local markets
Hyperlocal marketing on social media turns your potential customers into actual customers.
44% of local businesses depend on social media to create brand awareness. And when people know your brand, they are more likely to buy from you.
Your biggest ally here is the relevancy, especially when it comes to physical stores. It’s easy to imagine why: in many cases, it’s easier for people to buy from local shops.
If there’s a Gelateria in your neighborhood that you are aware of by regularly seeing people on social media tag it on their photos (digital word-of-mouth), wouldn’t you be interested in trying it?
And that’s just one of the many ways that hyperlocal marketing can increase your brand awareness on social media.
Cost-efficiency
With a clear goal and target audience in mind, hyperlocal social media marketing can cut your expenses significantly and get you a higher social return on investment (ROI).
In hyperlocal marketing, you already know exactly where and who you are going to promote your brand for. That means less market research, less advertising budget, and more revenue!
Let’s go over this using an example.
Let’s say you have a bookshop. Without hyperlocal marketing, you use general promotions, targeting readers across the entire city. While they get a few likes and shares, there’s minimal conversion into actual store visits or purchases, leading to an inefficient allocation of advertising funds.
When you switch to hyperlocal social media strategies though — like using ads targeting users within a 3-mile radius — and engage with local communities, offering highly personalized services, everything would change.
You promote weekly book clubs and highlight local authors. You drive foot traffic, create community engagement, and maximize the efficiency of your advertising spend.
As you can see, hyperlocal marketing is one of the most cost-efficient social media strategies you can try.
Now that you know the potential of this approach, let’s go over some of the best strategies for using hyperlocal social media marketing.
5 Best Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing Strategies
Whether you own an online business or a physical store, these hyperlocal social media strategies can change your business!
1- Geo Targeted advertising
As the name indicates, Geo-Targeted advertising is a type of online advertising that delivers ads to users based on their location.
This can be a very effective way to reach potential customers who are physically close to your business.
For example, if you own a restaurant, you could use geo-targeted advertising to show ads to people who are within a 10-mile radius of your restaurant.
To use geo-targeted ads effectively, you need to:
Choose the right social media channels
Not all social media platforms offer geotargeting features.
Here’s what you should know about each platform’s geo ads capabilities:
Facebook & Instagram
Facebook and Instagram offer some of the best and most robust geotargeting capabilities. You can target users based on specific locations (countries, states, cities, and even specific addresses).
There’s also a radius targeting option. Beyond this, you can adjust for location-based factors like travel behavior or recent location changes.
X (Twitter)
X (Twitter) provides geo-targeting options, allowing you to target users by specific countries, states, and cities. While its geotargeting capabilities are more limited compared to Facebook, it’s still effective for broader geo campaigns.
For example, you can target a radius of 1 mile to 50 miles around a location (available only in the US and Japan).
Your ads will be displayed in all selected locations, including overlapping areas. To target specific regions, you should add only those regions as campaign criteria.
LinkedIn’s geotargeting focuses on professional demographics. Advertisers can target users based on their location down to the city level and the location they have entered in their profile.
LinkedIn provides options for state, major metro, or country targeting, but please note that not all cities and metropolitan areas are available for selection.
TikTok
TikTok allows advertisers to target up to 1,500 locations at once, which may include regional descriptions.
Zip code targeting is available for more precise targeting, but some codes might not be selectable due to various reasons. Also, focusing on very small geographic areas may reduce impressions and lead to a higher CPA.
Bonus: Here’s how to find trending hashtags on TikTok.
Target your audience carefully
The beauty of geo ads lies in their high accuracy.
How accurate? Well, let’s say you can target even a few blocks or just one street if you want!
But the location is not the only option you can control. Here are some of the common options that you can modify when using social media advertising:
- Interests: Hobbies, activities, or topics the user is interested in.
- Demographics: Age, gender, education, marital status, job title, etc.
- Custom Audiences: Targeting based on your existing customer data.
- Behavior: Previous online actions, such as shopping behavior or content interaction.
- Lookalike/Similar Audiences: Targeting new users similar to your existing customers.
With a little bit of effort, not only you’ll be able to target your audience based on location, but you can also target each of your customer personas!
Create compelling ads
Keep in mind that you are targeting your local community. So, it might not be a bad idea to include some local elements in your ad copies. For example, you can include the neighborhood name in the copy, or use pictures of your town landmarks.
2- Location-based social listening
Social listening is one of the most effective strategies when it comes to hyperlocal social media marketing.
It’s all about actively monitoring social media conversations, comments, social mentions AND reviews, and news websites to find related content about your brand and generate leads.
While you can use social listening to cover all the conversation on the web or social platforms, you can narrow down your result to a specific location, language, or even relevancy to your business thanks to the use of AI in marketing.
Imagine you run a local lawn care service in your city. Using social listening coupled with hyperlocal marketing, you monitor social media for mentions of your city and keywords related to “lawn care”, “gardening”, or “landscaping.”
When you come across residents asking for recommendations for a reliable lawn care service or complaining about lawn issues, you can engage with them, share your expertise, and offer your services.
This helps you establish a strong presence in your community, attract local customers, and grow your lawn care business in that specific area.
To do all this marketing magic, you’ll need a good social listening tool that has hyperlocal marketing options. Let’s take a look at one of the best: Mentionlytics.
Mentionlytics for hyperlocal social media marketing
Mentionlytics is an all-in-one social listening and analytics tool with exceptional features and filters that help you perform social listening for a specific location.
Here’s how Mentionlytics helps you to do hyperlocal marketing. First, create your account and activate your free trial:
Then, take these simple steps:
Step 1: Add Your Keywords
You start by adding your specific keywords to Mentionlytics. These keywords can be your brand name, product name, or even the neighborhood or city name you want to monitor for social listening.
Mentionlytics then search all major social media platforms and the web to find any information related to your keywords.
Step 2: Use Filters for Location and Language
After fetching the data, use filters to refine your results. Specify the exact country or language you want to focus on. This narrows down your search to hyperlocal conversations.
Mentionlytics automatically allows you to narrow down your results by country (for the US, down to each state). If you want to narrow down your search to a city or neighborhood, you can enter these locations as keywords or hashtags.
Step 3: Employ Boolean Search Operations
Make your search results even more precise by using Boolean search operations. Combine keywords with operators like AND, OR, and NOT to find the exact mentions you’re looking for. This helps filter out irrelevant noise.
For example, you can use “your service” AND “your location” to find the mentions and comments relevant to your business and location.
Remember that each of these comments can be a potential lead for you. You can assign these leads to your team members and use labels to stay organized.
Step 4: Utilize Sentiment Analysis
You can use Mentionlytics to steal your competitors’ customers too!
Leverage sentiment analysis to identify potential leads even further by engaging with dissatisfied users. Mentionlytics can help you spot conversations with positive, neutral, or negative sentiments.
Let’s see an example. Imagine Paypal is your competitor and you are mainly focused on attracting customers from Texas. Using Mentionlytics, you can track social media mentions that contain “Paypal” and then narrow down your search to Texas.
After that, filter further to see comments with negative sentiments. Here’s an example:
And just like that, you find yourself a lead!
But this is just one of the many things that you can do using Mentionlytics. Here are some of the other features:
- Media monitoring reports
- Share of Voice (SoV)
- Social media analytics
- AI-powered recommendations
If you want to enjoy all the premium features of Mentionlytics for free, all you have to do is try the free trial for two weeks!
3- Use geotags
No matter what you share on social media, whether it’s a post about your product or a Happy Friday post, always add your location!
This helps your visibility and engagement.
You can only use one tag as a geotag, however, if you want to make sure your content receives more visibility, try adding your location-based tags as normal hashtags.
Bonus: How to search multiple hashtags on Instagram.
4- User-Generated Content (UGC)
Using UGC marketing is another highly effective strategy in hyperlocal marketing.
When you encourage your customers, your neighbors, to share their experiences with your product or service, not only do you get genuine content, but also you’re building trust.
One of the best examples of hyperlocal social media UGC marketing is American Express’s #shopsmall campaign which encourages people to support their local businesses.
The campaign was launched in 2010 and has since grown to become one of the most popular social media campaigns for small businesses.
The campaign also partners with many organizations, such as the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the Small Business Administration (SBA), to help promote small businesses.
5- Brand Collaboration
Brand collaboration is an excellent hyperlocal social media strategy for several good reasons:
Extended Reach
When you collaborate with local businesses or influencers, you tap into their existing audience base.
This means your message reaches a wider, yet still highly targeted, local audience. It’s an effective way to expand your brand’s visibility within the community.
Trust and Credibility
Partnering with established local brands or well-regarded local influencers can lend your brand additional credibility.
Their endorsement or association with your product or service can build trust among their followers, making them more likely to engage with and support your brand.
Learn how to find social media influencers for your brand to start benefiting from this strategy.
Cost-Effective Marketing
Collaborative efforts often share the costs and resources involved in marketing campaigns. This can be especially beneficial for small businesses with limited budgets, allowing them to access marketing opportunities they might not afford on their own.
Local Insights
Collaborators often have a deep understanding of the local market and its nuances. This knowledge can be invaluable in tailoring your marketing efforts to resonate with the specific interests and needs of the local audience.
Community Building
Collaborative efforts can strengthen your ties within your local social media community. This sense of community involvement is a great brand’s reputation strategy and helps you foster a loyal customer base.
Cross-Promotion
Collaborators can cross-promote each other’s content or events. This mutual promotion can introduce your brand to new customers who may not have been aware of you otherwise.
Example of Hyperlocal Marketing on Social Media
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream is a small, Brooklyn-based ice cream company that has been using hyperlocal social media marketing to great success. The brand has well-optimized social media pages with over 203K followers on Instagram and 18K followers on Facebook.
One of the ways that Van Leeuwen Ice Cream uses hyperlocal social media marketing is by sharing and creating content that is specific to the neighborhoods where they have stores.
For example, they might share photos of their ice cream being served at a local event like the US Open Tennis Championships.
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream also uses hyperlocal social media marketing to promote its seasonal flavors or its grand openings. For example, they picked 5 Dallas residents to win a $50 gift card.
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Another way that Van Leeuwen Ice Cream uses location-targeted marketing is by partnering with local businesses and influencers.
By using hyperlocal social media marketing, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream has been able to connect with its target audience on a more personal level and build stronger relationships with them. This has helped them to increase brand awareness and drive sales.
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Grow Your Business Locally!
Hyperlocal social media marketing is a powerful way to connect with your target audience and build relationships with local businesses. By focusing on local content and partnerships, you can create a sense of community and build trust with your customers.
If you’re looking for a way to improve your hyperlocal social media marketing, sign up for Mentionlytics to try all the premium features of the app for free.
Mentionlytics can help you track mentions of your brand, competitors, and keywords in real-time. This information can help you identify opportunities to engage with your target audience and promote your business locally.
Gather and analyze all Web & Social mentions of your brand
Mentionlytics works 24/7 and scans for pages and users mentioning your brand and your competitors. Get Share of Voice, Sentiment Analysis, Influencers and many other reports automatically.
