Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, your time is valuable. You have a lot of responsibilities clamoring for your attention, and you need to make sure you use each moment wisely. When it comes to social media, you can spend an awful lot of time delving into all the different tools, but making sure your efforts count can be a bit trickier. Here’s how to make the most of your small business social media investment without spending countless hours on work that won’t bring results.

Choose one or two venues that can accomplish your goals most effectively

You don’t have to dive head first into social media. It’s okay to start by getting your feet wet with just one or two ideas such as a Twitter or Facebook account and a blog. You can intertwine your venues as well, using your Twitter or Facebook posts to promote your blog and vice versa.

Network

Build relationships with your customers and other bloggers in order to build trust and credibility. As a small business, social media efforts can be helped tremendously by getting some well-known bloggers to post on your site. As an added bonus, you may also be asked to post on theirs as well, increasing your exposure. Also, take note of customers who comment on your posts or your Facebook page regularly and ask them to help you spread the word about new products or initiatives.

Give information for free

This may go against the grain, but offer your followers free information in the form of a tip of the week or a free idea that relates to your business. You’ll build a loyal following and encourage people to look for you for more extensive help when they need it.

Consider some lesser-known social media outlets

You may find that as a small business, social media outlets that cater to the corporate giants make it easy for your company to get lost. Try getting involved in a business-oriented smaller endeavor such as Foursquare, which rewards your customers for visiting you and allows you to post special deals for participants.

Leverage your time effectively

The bottom line is that there are only so many hours in the day, and you need to find out what venues work for you and then spend your greatest efforts developing those venues. Talk to your customers and find out which social media channels they use regularly. Watch to see which options bring the most business to your website and drop the ones that don’t deliver.

Hire a Social Media Mentor

What’s your social media strategy?  What tactics should you use to engage your customers? How to I get people to find me?  Sometimes letting an expert get you started and show you how it’s done can be a tremendous time saver. Consider hiring someone to mentor you through the first few critical months.

Social media can help you increase your website traffic and ultimately your conversion rates simply by taking the time to get to know your customers better.

Have a question or need a mentor?  Give Carl a call (toll free) 888-320-4996 or contact us.