5 social media tools you can use to market your small business

transcript

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS THAT WORK FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Top 7 for Small Business1. Blogs

2. Facebook

3. LinkedIn

4. Youtube

5. Twitter

6. Google Plus

7. Pinterest

Why use social media?

• Your competitors are using it

• It’s cost efficient

• It’s easy to set up

• It provides you with a channel to have a

conversation with your customers

• It helps increase lead generation

• It improves your search engine rankings

• It improves brand recognition

How are entrepreneurs using social media

• Build communities

• Communicate and advise customers

• Discuss business issues

• Build brand

• Build a database

• Establish themselves as experts

• Interact with customers and

give them feedback

• Participate but be relevant

• Listen and monitor what

people are saying

• Measure the effectiveness

Why you should Blog

• It’s easy to update

• You can share your expertise

• Promote your blog using facebook,

twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and regular

marketing tools

• Get your webmaster to put your blog

on your website it improves your SEO

ranking

Tips for Bloggers

• Develop a blogging strategy and blog

regularly (1 - 3 times a week)

• Use great headlines and include

keywords

• Add pictures

• Allow people to share your content

• Include Google analytics

Ideal length of a blog post 400 words

Corporate

Small Business

Most effective social media posts

1. Ask a question

2. Share photos and videos

3. Do a survey

4. Post inspirational quotes

5. Comment about current events

6. Make controversial statements

(don’t be offensive)

7. Share customer stories

Facebook Business Page

• Start a business page (if you haven’t yet)

• Invite people to join

• Encourage discussion & answer customer questions

• Ask customers for their opinion

• Ask questions

• Allow people to share your content

• Include events, videos, photographs, blog articles

Buddy Belts

Facebook Promotion

LinkedIn Stats

• Average Age - 41

• Household income -

$109,703

• Own a smart phone - 34%

• Graduate - 80.1%

• 50% are decision makers

in their companies

• Develop a profile online

• Highlight your skills and

achievements

• Add your contacts

• Use it to find prospects,

employees & suppliers

• Use it to ask questions and

get answers

• Join groups or form your own

• Search for people in targeted

fields, positions and ask them

to join your network

• Keep in touch regularly with

your contacts

• Build a great online database

• Create a business page

Twitter• It’s about following people & people following you

• You can learn & you can educate

• You can search terms

• You can use hashtags to promote specific topics E.g.

#smallbusiness

• You can share links to interesting websites

• Update regularly and “retweet” other people’s posts

• Use Twitter to draw traffic to your blog & website

Get Some Business

Tweetdeck

YouTube

• Demonstrate your products or expertise

• Use keywords

• Practice

• Brand your video

• Encourage feedback

• Use other online resources to direct traffic to

your video

• Google loves video

• Pin pictures of your products online and

allow your customers to do so

• Develop a business page and share

quotes, pictures. If they’re interesting

people will follow you

• Develop content people want to share

• Participate and share other people’s

content

On Pinterest with a link to ETSY

Google Plus

What the experts say:

Google+ integrates with all of Google’s other extremely popular

public-facing services: search, Google Places, Google Maps and so

on. Any business on Google+ will likely see an SEO (search engine

optimization) boost from maintaining an active Google+ page. If

you’re running a brick-and-mortar store, such as a restaurant or

appliance store, having a Google+ page will help add valuable data

to your Google Places – Source

http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/small-business-google-plus/

Use Google Hangout to meet with clients

Final Tips

1. Choose the ideal platforms for your business

2. Develop a strategy and be consistent

3. Post quality content

4. Update regularly

5. Encourage people to like, share

6. Don’t focus too much on selling. Use the 80/20 rule

7. Be patient

THANK YOU