6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business
Someone somewhere once said, “Don’t forget about the little guy.” I guess I could Google the answer, but I am to lazy to bother. It just sounded like a good opening line for this post.
Yesterday, a friend of mine who owns a local main street business here in lovely San Carlos, California. I was preaching, evangelizing , chatting about the benefits of Social Media and how it can help brands gain awareness. He quickly looked at me and said “What about the regular folks? You know the guys like me without a big budget?” After the shock of having him finally engage me in a conversation about what I do wore off, I told him I would write a blog post with my answer. (Hey anything to get traffic.. right?” So here you go Ed. This one is for you. I would like to share with you my thoughts, in list form, cause people like lists. Here are 5 ways a local business can use social media to gain awareness.
-Have a website and a blog. Simple right? One mistake I see is that companies create the website but not the blog. You need to have a blog. It allows your clients to get more insight into what you do, your background, your history and more. If you make sure to tag your articles, use keywords, etc this will help people stumble across you on google.
-Get on Twitter. Yep, here comes Twitter again, its power can not be denied. You need to get on there and start “Tweeting” posting information, insight, background..(wait it is just like a blog! Yes it is, it is called micro-blogging!) Here is the key for success, make sure to comment back to others and engage in conversation. Shhh, this will be our secret.
-Get a Facebook page. Like you did not see this one coming right? You need to have a fanpage. Are you going to get 100,000 fans? No. Do you need a 100,000 fans? No. Will having conversations with some local people and having local people join help with awareness of you in your community? You bet. The key here is when people comment on your fanpage and you comment back, their friends will see it. It is worth its weight in gold.
-You are the expert. So what I like to tell people is setup you are website like your the expert. So if you are my friend Ed, you are Ed The Real Estate agent. You are Ed, the most knowledgeable Real Estate Agent in San Carlos. Make sure to blog about Real Estate in our area. Your a local guy, talking about homes in New York is not going to make you money. Talking about Homes here in San Carlos, will make you money. When that family who needs an agent thinks ” We need a bigger home, Who is that online guy from Facebook?” they think of you. You get the idea, right
-Link Love. Make sure to link to other local businesses on your website. They will return the favor. Plus it helps with your Google Page Rank
-Find ways to use online tools in a different way. Try things out. Maybe take orders via Twitter. Offer to send pictures of products via email. Give out coupon codes on Facebook. The possibilities are endless. I am talking about taking chances and thinking outside the box.
Bonus tip: Go to Meetups, Tweetups, mixtures or whatever they are called these days. They are all over the place and local. Get out there.
So what are some of the tips I forgot? There must be a ton.
Jamie Favreau
2 years ago
I agree. You have to be going out networking even if you aren't active in the social media space. It is where small biz gets its biz. Plus, your local chambers. He should be following them on Twitter and Facebook.
davepeck
2 years ago
Your right following local chambers is smart
Chris Celek
2 years ago
Good advice for businesses Dave. I would suggest adding to your list: Use events calendars, on Linkedin and Facebook. Share the events your business is hosting and supporting. Share the events you plan to attend. Customers and partners will thank you — and plan to meet you or help you.
Ann Confrey
2 years ago
I like this idea Chris, off to check them out
davepeck
2 years ago
Yep, I should of put event calendars and using sites like yahoo.upcoming and such.
Taylor Walsh
2 years ago
Hey Dave,
I liked your advise to your hamburger joint owning pal. All good stuff, highly recommended. Here's another non-virtual, but useful, 7th Way:
On your other ads (on the side of the bus…on your napkins…on your store sign) add your twitter address.
http://www.twitter.com/SanCarlosBurgers
Then tweet of course…with tales from customers (SC Little League Lemurs stopped in today!), coupons, deals, new sandwiches, etc. Depends on the nature of the biz, of course.
A guy did this for his pizza place and had orders increase 20% in the next month. I'm not even sure you have to do the link-exchanges, FB fan page, etc, to get this effect. At least not right away.
The secret for any local merchant is that they are already part of one or maybe many more social networks. In the old days, those were called "market segments;" but that phrase must be BANNED forevermore; it is far too static for the dynamism inherent in any social network that can now be animated by social media.
Taylor Walsh
2 years ago
Damn…forgot to un-link that FAKE TWITTER ADDRESS. Apologies.
davepeck
2 years ago
Thanks Taylor great information and examples
Tweets that mention New Media Chatter » Blog Archive » 6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business -- Topsy.com
2 years ago
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dave Peck, Chris Celek, Shawn Cartwright, Shawn Cartwright and others. Dave Peck said: New Blog Post: 6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business http://bit.ly/25BHje [...]
Peter Fabricius
2 years ago
Thank you Dave, and thank you for the napkin example Taylor.
In my opinion small businesses should subscribe to a few industry related blogs, and note to content and writing styles, before launching their own.
I've seen blogs do more harm than good for SMME's when they run out of content or interesting posts. A blog can become a hassle and can easily portray absence and affect the visitor's trust.
http://www.twitter.com/peterfabricius <- hence Taylor's Napkin example
davepeck
2 years ago
Yes, your urls should be on everything. Your right Peter
Taylor Walsh
2 years ago
I agree about SME blogs Peter; hard to sustain. Twitter a far simpler marker, needing only a moment to dash out an update, and infinitely more distributable than a blog post.
Peter Fabricius
2 years ago
Very true Taylor. The great thing about Twitter for me personally is that I know when I read a tweet, I will not have to read more than 140 characters before deciding whether it is of interest to me or not.
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funeral dove release
2 years ago
funeral dove release…
Well put….
hcharan
2 years ago
That's a great post! I totally agree with the part on "Do you need a 100,000 fans? No ". Often, People tend to run after the numbers but they fail to realise that numbers can do nothing if the engagement is not happening. Nothing can substitute interaction with the fans on a fanpage. An article by Adam Goldberg explains the same – In his post he speaks of how Lamborghini has over 447,000 fans on Facebook but Toyota has just 11,000 fans. He goes on to say that "Toyota sold 9.2 million cars in 2007 (’08 numbers not yet available) and Lamborghini sold 2,406 cars in ‘07, or 2,823 times the number of cars sold by Lamborghini. So, if the number of fans one has is not a straight-line correlation to the number of sales a company will do, then what is the value of having fans? " .. Absolutely!
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[...] just ran across a post from yesterday that talks about 6 ways social media can HELP local businesses. Having just built a social media site for a local company — getting some blank looks in [...]
Startled Doves
2 years ago
Startled Doves…
I didn\’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me……
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Kriselle Laran
2 years ago
San Carlos businesses should also be aware that the City of San Carlos will link to your Facebook fan page and include you on their Twitter lists if you are a business with a current license. This broadens your exposure even more, and helps residents easily find local businesses to purchase products or services from.
If you're a physical location, I highly advise you look into geolocation applications that your customers may be using. (Dave – I'm surprised you didn't talk about that on here! You're like Mr. Geolocation =) ) Applications like Foursquare, GoWalla, or Whrrl are fun for users because they're essentially games to play with your friends or online journals ala Xanga without all the words, but businesses should care because their basically a part of the game board. These applications are free advertisements since users can add the locations in as they visit. If businesses take advantage of things like the Foursquare mayor specials, geolocation apps can be even more useful.
I should stop here…maybe I should make my own blog post about it and drive traffic back to my own site =)