The great advantage of social media marketing for small business is that you don’t need a big budget, a marketing department or an ad agency. In the realm of online social media marketing a small business owner can compete with the big boys. And it doesn’t really matter if you are a shoe store, a pub, a spa or a restaurant. If there is a chance that potential customers may find you online you should be doing online social media marketing. When you are starting there are five things you should do right away to start your small business’ social media marketing plan.
Web Site
To some this may seem like an insurmountable task. It may be hard for you to do it yourself and you may need to spend some money to have someone build a site for you. Think of your website as your business’ sign on the internet. You paid for a sign for your store now pay at least the same amount for a web site. A wider range of people will see it. Do not go overboard here. The site should be professional and functional. But remember function trumps beauty. If it is difficult for the visitor to connect with you or learn about your business you have wasted your money. If the web designer plans on taking months to complete the site then fire them and hire someone else. There are web site templates and platforms that make building and maintaining a site easy. You will want to learn how you or your staff can easily update the site. Two web site platforms I would recommend are WordPress and HubSpot (affiliate alert).
Facebook Business Page
It takes just a few minutes to set up a Facebook Business Page. Be sure to do a business page and not a personal page or a group page. This will give you more flexibility in using your page to promote your business. It is essential for Business-to-Customer or B2C businesses to have a Facebook page. This is the place where you can engage with your frequent customers and fans. Although not as prevalent as B2C pages there has been a number of very successful Business-to-Business or B2B business pages on Facebook. While you are there claim your Facebook Places.
Google Places
Whenever anyone searches for a business in Google, for example coffee shops in Seattle, they will see a map filled with little tags and a list of coffee shops. When you look in the upper right corner and you see “Edit the place – Business owner?” this means this business has not been claimed. If you are the business owner this means everything written there has been out of your control! Take back control and claim your business. You will have to prove to Google that you are the owner but that is not hard. And the best thing is once you have claimed the business you can add important information, links to your web site, photos, hours of operations, and you can post coupons for free and you get monthly analytical statistics! For a step-by-step guide download our new E-Book: Claiming Your Google Places.
Start a twitter account for your business. This is a great way to promote specials, give your fans the heads up on exclusive promotions, and get found by others. Those who contend that twitter is trivial should read The Edison Research report: Twitter Usage In America. You will find out that almost half of twitter users rely on twitter for business.
Start a Blog
This may seem like the last thing a small business owner should be dealing with. If getting people to your web site, your sign and presence on the internet, is important then you need to be blogging. Consistently blogging increases those things that help your website be found. According to research by Hubspot, sites with blogs have 97% more links to their websites than those who don’t blog. 434% more pages are indexed on Google. The more pages you have indexed on Google the more likely your site will turn up on a Google search. But most importantly websites with active blogs have 55% more visitors than sites without blogs. Blogging platforms that you can get set up quickly and start blogging include Google’s Blogger, Word Press and HubSpot.
There are of course more things that you can do but if I had a small business, especially one that has a location such as a store, restaurant or tavern these five tasks would be at the top of my small business marketing plan. If you would like a free assessment of your online marketing plan please contact us.
Photo Credit: Clarita-MorgueFile
