Most Useful Social Networking Sites for Small Businesses
Most Useful Social Networking Sites for Small Businesses
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Most Useful Social Networking Sites for Small Businesses
Do you own or work for a small business? Did you know that 75% of small businesses are looking to expand their social media budget as an essential part of their marketing campaign for 2011 and 2012? Social media is the easiest way for companies to reach out to the masses and expand their online presence. In a lot of articles, I emphasize social media as a way to expand online presence. This applies to small businesses as well.
The biggest struggle for small businesses is to spread the word about their services and brands. Coca cola and Starbucks weren’t always the superstars that they are now. Starbucks especially spread by word of mouth – and social media facilitates this spreading of information. (See which brands are best at creating the social media buzz.)
However, social media can also be a curse. It is hard to pick out the flowers from all of the weeds. As a small business you really need to distinguish yourself as a legitimate company with room to grow and expand to new audiences. These social media platforms are the best for you to expand your brand online.
Recently, a publication stated that Audi (not a small business, but still not the biggest business in terms of loyal followers) had the most interactive Facebook page. They averaged about 200 "likes" for every post that they created.
A genius marketing scheme or sheer luck? This definitely was not due to luck 100% – Audi did manage to have a great deal of followers on Facebook, but their content was also very interactive. They posted pictures, videos and insider facts.
Creating a Facebook page for your company and trying to get as many fans and "likes" on your posts as possible is a great way to expand your online presence. It is important to post enough, but not too much (once or twice a day should do the trick). You don’t want to overwhelm your followers, rather give them insight about your company that they are likely to "like." A lot of small companies (like social media guru Ashton Kutcher’s company, Katalyst) use Facebook as their website (and nothing else).
Twitter is undoubtedly a great way for you to reach out to people that you wouldn’t necessarily reach on Facebook. With twitter, people will be able to find your tweets more easily than your Facebook page. Tweet about relevant things to your company, but focus also on other things in your industry. You do not want your twitter page to portray an ego-centric company. Tweet once in awhile about relevant articles or things that you think people in your niche will be interested in.
What is a niche market? On twitter you always want to establish your audience or your niche before you start tweeting. You want to be able to maintain some sort of focus with your profile so that your followers will be more targeted and loyal. The only problem with twitter is that sometimes follower numbers will fluctuate. Don’t be discouraged if you lose some followers – spam accounts or accounts that are only looking to get followers in return and don’t care about what you’re tweeting are out there. If they unfollow you, it is no sweat off of your online back!
Does your company have a blog? Well it should. Keeping a blog is a great way to get people interested in your company. Make your small business’ website easily accessible from your blog (to direct traffic) and establish yourself as an expert in your trade.
Any blog entry that you write should keep in mind basic SEO rules and write articles about topics that people will stumble upon in search engines as well as on your blog. It is important to expand your presence in as many ways as possible. Creating an established blog that people subscribe to will undoubtedly expand your brand and drive traffic.
I am a big believer in submitting all content to StumbleUpon. Not only is it another website that you can add your content and brand to, but also it is a great way to open up your website and blog entries to a whole new array of people.
You tag your submissions to StumbleUpon so that people can stumble their interests and hopefully come across your content. StumbleUpon can sometimes bring thousands of hits and thousands of loyal followers at a time! There isn’t a complete science to getting thousands of hits yet, but if people like what they see, they are likely to share it! Get one power stumbler to share your content and you’re good to go.