How To Get Started with Social Media For Small businesses – Hot Tips
Maybe you have a small business – a little consultant company, a coffee bar or you have a hairdresser shop. And you might have heard about the social media and that it is important for your marketing. So you wanna get started. So now … what do you do?
The great thing about Social Media is that it’s almost free. But yes… you will have to spend some time here – because you will need to engage your customers.
Let me show you step by step what you can do. So as always put your favorit music on and grab a cup of coffee. I would have made a 10 step list – but I finally came up with 11 steps.
1) local businesses
It really is essential for you shop or local business to register you business in Google place. It is like a free advertising on Google. This is the way to get found if you have a local shop. You can read more about how to use Google place in this article here…
But Google place is not the only local search engine place to get found. Remember to register on theses places too…
Yahoo Local
Yelp
Bing Local
Ask Cities
Openstreetmap
2) Video
Did you read this article here.. How to use YouTube for SEO ?
You should use YouTube for two reasons
- For getting higher ranking in the search engines
- Because many people would rather watch a video than reading a boring paper
Most business owners thinks of search engines like Google and maybe Yahoo or Bing. But most of the businesses on the Internet forget the 2. largest one – YouTube.
Theses days people are getting their news from Internet and not the newspapers. So instead of reading a book or a newspaper – people will take their laptop, tablet or iPhone to get their news. But reading articles online is just not enough anymore – people want entertainment.
People will rather get information from a visual video than more old fashion text. Why sit there and read boring text when you can watch a cool, exciting video?
(and no no no – don’t tell me I should have done this article in a video instead lol)
3) StumbleUpon – Diggs
Have you heard about StumbleUpon?
This social network will give you traffic 10 seconds after your have submitted a page. I am using it too.
Another site where you can submit your page is Diggs.com
Its easy to use – and will get traffic to your site. So use them 🙂
StumbleUpon
Diggs
4) Pinterest
I just read that Pinterest is the 3. biggest social media network in USA. And it’s in the top 5 in referal traffic list. So you will need to make your Pinterest account.
I found this link where you can learn more about Pinterest for businesses.
By the way – I am taking my own medicin – so I am going to start Pinterest too for SeoCustomer.com too.
5) Facebook (of course)
There are 845 mio. people with a Facebook account. So no matter what kind of business you got you to be there.
So go and create a Facebook page, get likes, share your stories and engage people. A great idea is to share more then just news about your shop. Share some local news too.
Ask your fellowers some quastions. Encourage engagement. Let them comment on pictures… Your ideas are just as good as my ideas.
But you have to use Facebook.
6) Twitter
500 mio. people has a twitter account. And yes you have to be where your potential customers are. So it’s a little like Facebook. You have to be there. No discussion.
Here you can learn about Twitter for business.
7) LinkedIn
LinkedIn has over 150 mio. accounts and still growing rapidly. Its a network of professionals. And as a business you will need connections. So it is important for you to have a company profile.
And you can do much more then just a company profile on LinkedIn. Remember to add your products and build your company network.
Every time you have been talking to somebody for your business remember to ad him to your LinkedIn network.
Here is much more information about Company pages in LinkedIn.
8) Foursquare
Registrer your business or shop at Foursquare. Some numbers about Foursquare…
- Community: Over 15 million people worldwide
- Over 1.5 billion check-ins, with millions more every day
- Businesses: Over 750,000 using the Merchant Platform (more information at foursquare.com/business)
You can create your own check-in location and let people check-in at your shop, store or place. This will help you get found, it will help you in organic search engines.
So make it easy for yourself and get started on Foursquare if you haven’t done it already.
9) Blogs
Blogs will give you many opportunities. Blogs is a place where you can write to people, get response, engage people.
A lot of companies have a homepage and a blog. You should try to mix them together. So people can comment directly on your pages. Why? Because it’s a way to get people coming back to your page (higher traffic), it’s a way to get the page fresh (Google and other search engines loves fresh pages theses days).
And it’s a great way to listen to your customers and get ideas 🙂
Did you know there are 180 mio. blogs around the world. So it will be great if you read some of them, write a comment on some of the blogs, and in return get some backlinks to your website. (Link juice)
10) Email – Newsletter
Many young people are not using e-mails anymore. So maybe e-mails is slowing dying now? But well… there is still 3.2 billions e-mails account arund the world.
And a newsletter is a great way to keep contact with people. I have a newsletter too. So remember to sign up – right here. If you sign up you also get a PDF with all the articles from 2011 and 2012 Q1 from this site.
And yes – e-mail is a social media too.
11) Google+
Last but not least remember Google+ (And I thank you Milda for reminding me) because it really is important. Do you know how many accounts there will be at the end of 2012 ….. 400 mil.
And Google search engine will be massive impact by the Google+. So yes yes yes… I should have been putting it up as the first of the list. Don’t forget Google+.
To me Google+ is important too… So put me in your cicles if you like this article (also if you don’t like this article). Add me here to your Google+
Read more about Google+ here – the biggest change in the history of Google.
Have a great day out there….
Henrik
