What do you think of when you think of “social media marketing”? True, most of us have become used to social media listening to connect with friends, renew old contacts from the past, and simply have fun. However, social media marketing may not have actually entered many of our minds as a way to promote our local businesses. It can actually be a very important part of your marketing strategy, since inbound marketing can be a much more effective way to “become found” by people who are already looking for what you have to offer, thus largely bypassing the old competitive paradigm of outbound marketing, where you are basically fighting competitors for your piece of the pie.
Social media marketing in fact really streamlines the process for you so that your marketing efforts can become focused on the audience you really want to zone in on, thus making you both more efficient and more effective. This is cost saving, of course, but it also makes your business much more enjoyable, because you can spend a lot more time marketing to the people you want to market to, while leaving the “the masses” aside.
This is especially true for small local businesses, which generally have a relatively small customer base to market to. However, how do you most effectively use social media marketing as an inbound marketing tactic, so that you draw those customers to you? Here are five things you can do to make your social media marketing efforts most effective.
Start a social networking group that’s focused on the “local”.
Social networking sites like Facebook let you set up groups based upon a topic, niche, and so on. This is a great way to draw people who are already interested in your services or products to you, thus giving you a ready customer base. With a social networking group, you can tell your customers about your products or services, and answer their questions, too. And because it’s locally based, chances are many of those potential customers already feel a certain affinity for you.
Network with other bloggers and business people who are local.
Chances are, many bloggers and other business people are local, too, and networking tools that are also available online can help you find these people; they may be interested in writing about you, linking to your blog, or networking in other ways. This will help increase your exposure, which will also help increase your business. (By the way, return the favor and link to, comment on, etc., other qualified people’s blogs and sites as well, so that they get exposure, too.)
“Meet and tweet” online.
There are social media tools that can help you both create and then advertise local events so that you can draw local people to you. With these, you can hold open houses, provide product demonstrations, and so on.
Similarly, Twitter, too, is a way to gather people together who can then meet locally, centered around your products or services.
Shop for partners or local prospects on social media sites.
Because there are powerful search interfaces built into all social media sites, it’s a small step indeed to simply search for others in your area who are also using social media to find products or services, and/or to network with other people in similar industries.
Make yourself known.
If you create profiles on as many social media sites as you can find, and then link those sites with keywords that are locally based back to your main site, people are going to find you. In other words, put your city and state in your profile, so that people can find you and use your services if they are in nearby locations. You can and should optimize by brand, need, etc., as well, of course, but you should also optimize by location, so that those who want to use local services can easily find you.
