Small Business Design Resources

Social Media for Businesses: Empty Hype?

I’ve been observing my small business design clients for the past couple of years to see how they choose to use social media to promote their businesses.

My unscientific conclusion: small businesses seem to either love social media and use it as much as they can, or avoid it completely. There’s almost no middle ground, and it’s especially interesting to me that the clients who avoid social media are almost, it seems, afraid to use it.

Businesses worry about using social media for several reasons. The main reason is that they worry they will be wasting valuable time and resources on something that is no more than a hype – a passing trend that will disappear within a few years, leaving all those businesses who poured time and money into social media marketing with nothing.

Another common fear is that since social media is essentially about opening your business to your prospects and clients and having conversations with them, you would lose control of your brand and of your image if you engage in social media.

I would like to address the second issue first. I don’t think you should be afraid of social media. The conversations in social media about your brand are going to take place whether you are involved in them or not. It’s actually better to be involved, to initiate some of the conversations and certainly to follow mentions of your brand in social media (use Twitter Search) and respond to them.

As for the first question, most experts agree that while no one can say for certain that social media as it is now will be here in the same form a decade from today, the general concept of engaging customers and prospects in direct conversations is here to stay. I agree: consumers and businesses are quickly learning to expect two-way conversations with each other instead of solely relying on the traditional one-way promotional messages in print ads and in television commercials.

So, can you show clear return on your investment in social media marketing? This is where things get a bit trickier. Marketing is one area where it’s been traditionally difficult to show hard numbers, and social media marketing is no different. However, social media ROI can and should be measured.

A few ways you can measure the success of your social media marketing campaign:

1. Is your favorite social media channel (such as Twitter or Facebook) among the top ten referrers to your website?

2. When people get to your website through a social media channel, how engaged are they? Do they immediately bounce back, or do they spend a few minutes on your site?

3. What percent of your social media visitors become leads by downloading white papers or eBooks or by subscribing to your blog or to your newsletter?

4. What percentage of social media visitors become clients or customers?

Remember that whatever you do to track your social media ROI, you need to be patient. Establishing a social media account, growing it and cultivating connections with clients and prospects isn’t something you can do overnight. I would say that the typical social media account takes at least six months to start showing results, and the longer you keep at it, the better your results, provided you only follow relevant people and engage them daily.

How To Effectively Use Twitter For Business

Many small businesses have been resisting Twitter for a long time now, but the reality is that more and more of your customers are using Twitter – and so should you. A basic rule of marketing says that you need to be where your customers and prospects are. If your prospects are using Twitter, and your competitors are using Twitter, then NOT using Twitter could turn out to be a costly business mistake.

To properly use Twitter for business, you need to start by shaking the notion that Twitter is “stupid,” that you “don’t get it” and that it’s basically a huge waste of time. Twitter need not waste your time at all. In fact, most businesses spend about ten minutes per day twittering. A selective, disciplined use of social media in general and of Twitter in particular works beautifully for small businesses that can’t afford to hire someone to tweet all day for them. Ten minutes per day is all it takes to connect with prospects and to build your brand on Twitter.

Five Useful Tips for Using Twitter for Business

1. Add a personal touch. A cold corporate account is a turnoff – even if your customers are businesses too. Your tweets should include company news and info of course, but you should also have conversations – real conversations with followers. Many businesses add the name of the person who tweets for them to their bio as another great way to be more personal.

2. Use Twitter Search. One of the most important uses of Twitter for businesses is to respond to customer issues. Use Twitter Search to find out who’s mentioning your company on Twitter, and respond as necessary.

3. Don’t be too pushy. Tweets about your products are fine, but you should also tweet general industry news and links, retweet (which basically means repeat to others) what others are saying, ask and answer questions. If all your tweets are promoting your company and your products, you are not using Twitter properly.

4. Twitter is a great platform for promoting your blog posts. When you do, it’s a good idea to add a personal touch by introducing the topic, or asking a question about it, then providing a link to the blog post. Tweets that simply say “New blog post,” then give a link to the post don’t normally generate a lot of responses, because they’re not very interesting!

5. Be generous. Don’t promote just yourself. Promote others too, link to them, and be nice. There’s no need to promote direct competitors (although following them if they follow back and congratulating them on successes is good manners), but do make it a point to be generous with anyone who is not in direct competition to your business.

Above all, don’t be afraid of Twitter! Many small business owners worry about wasting entire days on Twitter and especially about the possibility of Twitter backfiring if used by customers to criticize them. But Twitter only wastes your time if you let it, and although it CAN be used to criticize your company, it can also be used by you to promptly respond to criticism, provide excellent customer service publicly, make things right for your customers and make your brand even stronger.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 10 Newbie Twitter Mistakes Made By Businesses (socialmediatoday.com)
• Strategies for Effective Twitter Marketing (lazerpromotions.com)
• My Twitter Resources Library (angelamaiers.com)

Targeting Local Traffic

The Internet is truly a global phenomenon, allowing you to connect with customers all over the world. With a business website, you aren’t limited to local traffic the way you are with only a brick-and-mortar location. That is a huge business advantage, but it can leave you wondering how to build your local presence on such a global platform. Luckily, there are several excellent resources available to help you target local traffic.

Yelp.com is a website where customers can search for local businesses and leave reviews of their experiences, and it also offers a number of free tools for small business owners. If you haven’t already, check Yelp to see if your business is listed; if it isn’t, you can list it for free. If it is listed, claim your page to take advantage of all that Yelp.com offers small business owners: communicate with your customers by responding to their reviews, promote discounts and special events, check the amount of traffic your Yelp business page receives, recommend other businesses, and provide detailed information about your business–including your website address. With more than 26 million visitors in December 2009, Yelp.com is a great way to connect with local traffic.

Google’s Local Business Center offers small business owners the opportunity to customize their listing on Google and Google Maps, with options like adding pictures, coupons, business hours, and more. You can also see behind-the-scenes information to find out things like who’s searching for you and what search terms they’re using to find you. You can even see where driving directions requests originate, so you will know where your visitors are coming from and whether you’re targeting local traffic.

The social networking phenomenon Twitter is another way to stay connected with your local customers, and Twitter is beginning to cater to small business owners. It’s a quick and immediate way to communicate with customers, see what people are saying about your business, and build relationships with customers and other businesses. Put a Twitter badge on your website and begin following local individuals and businesses, and before you know it you’ll have followers of your own. One of the really cool things about Twitter is that your conversations with customers are publicly visible and searchable, meaning they often attract attention from other Twitterers in the same locale or with similar interests.

Facebook, which began as a social networking site exclusively for college students, has expanded dramatically and now offers great opportunities for small businesses. When you create a free business page on Facebook, anyone can become a fan of your page and suggest that others do the same. You can provide detailed information on your profile (including your website address), post business updates, make photo albums, and converse with your fans. Facebook users can search business pages by location, and many are thrilled when they can become fans of their favorite local businesses. And since their friends can see what businesses they’re fans of, your local exposure increases exponentially with every fan you acquire.

These are four great websites that offer free ways to connect with local customers. They will help you target local traffic, learn about your customers, and provide your small business with a strong local presence even on the global Internet.

Make the Most of Your Small Business Advertising Dollars

Advertising can be expensive, and it can also be ineffective–as a small business owner, you want to be absolutely sure that you don’t combine those two and end up spending a lot on advertising only to see a minimal (or negative) return on investment. Luckily, the rise of the Internet has resulted in many low-cost advertising options that are perfect for small business owners.

What’s on the top of our list for the best return on investment? A professional business website. These days a website is indispensable for any small business; while potential customers once consulted the Yellow Pages to find you, the Internet is now their first–and often only–stop. Many small business owners attempt a do-it-yourself website without realizing that professionals specializing in small business design are an excellent return on investment. Think of it as the difference between a single-line listing in the phone book and a full-page, color ad. Which business is going to get noticed? The one whose website looks professional, is on the first page of search engine results, and provides useful content. Investing in a professional with expertise in small business design can help you achieve that, and will quickly pay for itself.

But don’t stop at a website–there are other ways to harness the advertising power of the Internet. Word of mouth has always been one of the most cost-effective forms of advertisement, and social networking sites are the new word of mouth. These sites are reaching more people than ever and are usually free to join. Maintaining a business profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites is an inexpensive way to build an Internet presence and keep your customers up-to-date. You can even create your own television-style ads and post them on Youtube for free. Feature them on your website and your Facebook page and you might be the next viral video phenomenon! In addition to creating your own profile, connect with other people and businesses whose followers are likely to be interested in your product or services. Become visible to their followers by commenting on their profiles or blogs and leaving a link to your website.

Placing ads on the Internet can also be a good investment if you choose their location and style carefully. Choose which websites to advertise on by keeping your target audience in mind–just like with physical signage, you want to place your ads in locations that potential customers frequent. Finding the most effective placement is easy with sites like BuySellAds.com, which will help you find a target website or blog for your ads or offer advertising space on your own website. The best way to maximize your advertising dollars using Internet advertising is to start small and take advantage of the statistics available to you. There are a variety of tools available that will help you determine where your website traffic is coming from, which customers are buying what, and which ads are most effective. A lot of these tools are free, but staying on top of your Internet advertising statistics does require an investment of your time. However, it’s one that’s well worth it–you can learn what advertising methods work for you before you invest significant money.

Finally, advertising to your current customers is always a good idea. Connect with them via social networking sites, send them a monthly newsletter updating them about your business, and keep your website updated with fresh content, deals and information of interest to them. If you haven’t already, start building an email list for email marketing. Your customers are already interested in you and your business, so you know that you’re reaching a receptive audience. Cultivating their interest will encourage them to be repeat customers and make them more likely to recommend you to their friends.

How to Make Money From Your Blog

When you develop your blog, you need to keep in mind the 4 basic principles of profitable website building. These are commonly known as CTPM. The letters stand for Content, Traffic, Pre-sell and Monetize. The four principles work for all aspects of your website business but let’s take a look at them in light of your Blog.

Let’s take a look at each of the words and how they apply to blogging.

Content

Your website content needs to be relevant and interesting first of all. To keep people on your site long enough to pre-sell or monetize, your website content needs to appeal to your readers, so it needs to be relevant to the topic of your website. That’s what will keep people coming back and that’s what will get people to sign up on your mailing list or your RSS feed for more information. A blog is a great way to enhance your content because you can change it regularly, especially with regard to changing search engine entries. You should be analyzing traffic to your site regularly using analytics tools, and you should be checking on reverse seach engine keywords regularly too to make sure you are keeping up with what people are typing in the search engines.

Traffic

Generating traffic is possibly the hardest part of running a website, and this is where the science turns into art. Blogging is one of the most highly recommended ways to drive traffic to your site so it’s a very handy tool if used in accordance with the four principles. But it’s not the only thing you can do. Here are some of the things you must look at, understand and master to generate traffic to your site:

• Affiliate marketing – affiliate marketing is where you get other internet marketers to help market your business by offering them incentives or rewards. For example, if you sell a product, you can have an affiliate sell your product for you and then they get a percentage of the profit and you get a percentage. You generate the product, and they generate the sales.
• Blog carnivals – bloggers of similar topics unite and blog on similar topics. A blog carnival has an edition, like a magazine, centered on a theme. Links to all the contributors are created in the blog. You can look for carnivals being run by others or you can create your own and get others to join in. You can create a carnival edition in your own blog and invite other bloggers to send you articles. Look for experts with great blogs that you want to associate to your blog carnival.
• Advertising – Look into advertising revenue using things like Google Adsense and Google Adwords. Adwords is a program for people who wish to post ads based on relevant keywords. They pay Google to post the ads. Adsense is the program that picks up the keywords and looks for relevant sites to post them to. When you create your site builder template you build in placeholders for ads. Of course, you can rearrange the ads at any time, or remove them all together from your site builder template. It’s up to you.
• Social Media – blogging is one form of social media, but there are many others. Look for ways to get your site linked to from other sites; submit articles to sites like Ezine.

Pre-sell

Preselling your customer means getting them interested in your service or product by nurturing them as customers and giving more than they bargained for in the best possible way – lots of useful information, good service and so on. Your blog should specifically help your customers and is a great pre-selling tool.

Monetizing

Simply put, this is the part where you make money. It might be from advertising dollars, or selling your service or product. Ideally it’s a combination of both.

Using the four principles is just the beginning. For a successful and profitable website you need to be dedicated and determined to reach the top of the search engines. Of all of the above, traffic is probably the most important because without traffic it doesn’t matter how good your content is and you won’t make money.