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SEM Vs SEO

Social Media for Small Business Owners (A Crash Course)

Social media might seem like the easiest (and cheapest) way to generate interest in your small businesses. And there is some truth in that perception. But at the same time, it’s a little more complicated than it looks to have a savvy social media presence that actually generates good leads and improves your business’s bottom line. Here is a little Focus Marketing and PR crash course in social media for small business owners:

  • Know your customer! Social media really only works if your customers are on social media and enjoy interacting with you that way. If you market mostly to senior citizens who don’t know Facebook from Face Time, you aren’t going to generate many valuable leads on social media.
  • Pick your platform. On a related note, pick the platform that makes the most sense for your business and your customers (Facebook vs. Instagram vs. Twitter). If possible, try to find out who your primary customer is and what social media platform they prefer (this might vary depending on age, industry, etc.). Also consider what you are trying to promote–for instance, if you have a lot of pictures to share, Instagram might be a good best.

social media for small business owners focus marketing and pr

  • It’s part of the whole. Don’t think that social media can completely take the place of marketing. The best approach is to treat it as just one part of your overall communication strategy.
  • Don’t stop short! Everything that you do online should drive traffic to your website. So, if you do social media posts, you still need to send people to your website. Google tracks site traffic, and more traffic means better SEO.
  • Use blogs to generate posts. We recommend writing weekly blogs because this gives you actual content to promote. You can promote your blog posts on social media and then make people click over to your site to “read more.”
  • Be consistent! You need to post consistently on social media for it to work. (Think at least once per week.)
  • Give an incentive. Social media can be great for promotions/sales/giveaways. We did an air conditioner giveaway on Facebook for Sensible Heating and Cooling, and the owner received a huge number of new followers as a result.

We hope that these tips about social media for small business owners are helpful! Contact Niki at [email protected] if you have any questions or need some help integrating your social media presence with other marketing efforts.

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