All organisations can benefit from some basic social media practices. Most start with a blog as their known benefits for search engine optimisation are now more understood (if not the science behind it all). Newer evolutions such as Twitter and Facebook, though heavily used, are proving difficult channels to master for small-medium businesses.
So how to take advantage of all this social buzz? Most small businesses are short on time, resources and money - they're not coca-cola with vast marketing budgets and the power of a known brand behind them. However with some clever use a business can engage with its customers and conduct some nifty cheap market research.
Where to start - some essential social media tools for small businesses
Social media needn't be time consuming or over-involved, take a look at these easy to manage tools:
- Blogs; generally the first place to look when starting out. A blog provides a platform to generate original content and discussion amongst your community and customers. A well written blog will lend your website a voice of authority. Think no-one cares that you're the number one expert on some obscure subject? Think again. Your content will be found and read by those with common interests or are perhaps looking for just such an expert. Ideally blogs should be two-way allowing visitors to feed back on your content. There's always plenty going on in every business, new products, services and customers that fresh topics shouldn't be hard to find. Blogs can also be informal compared to more traditional corporate news avenues, so don't be afraid to just get writing.
- Share This; so you've written all this great blog content, how do you get it out there? Easy, just share it and let your visitors do the hard work as your very own marketing team! Take a look at the bottom of our blog posts to see the "Share This" button which combines a number of the most common social platforms into a single easy to use sharing tool. Digg it, Dugg it, done.
- Facebook Comments; with user numbers approaching one billion, there's a good chance your visitors will have a facebook account making it easy for them to comment on your website. Comments remain for other visitors to see - don't be frightened, this can provide valuable insights and make market research a doddle. Don't be worried about negative comments either, use this as an opportunity to engage with your audience, dispel those myths and learn a little bit too!
- Facebook Like; great for niche eCommerce websites or those producing original content. A simple click on the like button spreads the word in the visitors's social circles, and if they like it then their friends probably do too.
- Twitter Updates; placing a feed of your latest tweets on your site shows you are active in your community and industry. Building a strong following through on-topic tweets and relevant information, allows you to get your message out instantly. Cheaper than email marketing and far less hassle.
- Google +1; one of the new kids on the block and similar in some ways to Facebook's like button, Google +1 already has over 15M users. Google has the market share in search and so any future benefit of implementing its social tool to your search engine ranking should be taken advantage of early.