Social media is a key marketing cornerstone for any local business. In addition to your website, you should be on the top social media platforms to communicate with your audience and get new customers.
First, Linked In is the biggest social network that consists of a pure business focus. All small business owners should have a presence here. Linked In is also a great platform for finding new opportunities and connect with other professionals that are important to you. You can upload you resume and connect your other social media efforts including a Twitter account and your blog. It is important to keep your information up-to-date as well as showing what your qualifications are within your niche.
Second, blogging is a way in which you can showcase your ideas. This could be a part of your website or it can be separate. If you blog on a single topic and it’s tightly focused, then you should add it to your main business’s website. If you blog topic jumps around a lot or some posts are a bit off-topic, then you should have your blog on a separate website. If you go this route, make sure you link to your website whenever you can with the text being a product or service you provide. This will help your SEO efforts.
Think of your website as being a hub for everything you do on the Internet. Every social media profile and other Internet presence should link to your website. When adding a profile, such as a local chamber of commerce or the Better Business Bureau, be sure to fill in the field that asks for your website. Google and other search engines routinely crawl these websites to track all outbound links. Links are still the backbone of how search engines rank websites.
Facebook is another presence you should have online, particularly a fan page. When creating a fan page you can select the template for a local business. You can add videos, updates, and pictures to you business page in the same manner as your personal profile. You can also add a Facebook App to offer even more. Things such coupons, widgets, and games can be added with a Facebook App.
YouTube is the best platform to add video content. You can also use YouTube to store the videos shown on your website. Simply grab the embed code on you YouTube video page and paste it on your website. This will give you unlimited storage space, more SEO backlinks, and improve the performance of your video. Videos on YouTube load very quickly and stream very well.
Twitter is another social network you could leverage. Your followers can see everything you post. For example, you can have YouTube automatically send a tweet of a video’s title every time you upload a new video with a link connected to it. You can also use a WordPress plug-in to automatically send a Tweet every time you publish a blog post. If you publish great content, members of your audience will tweet your content for you. Twitter is a platform you can utilize without it taking much of your time.
Now, you may be thinking that you don’t have time for multiple social media channels. There is another option. You can use a service such as Posterous to keep all your social media channels up-to-date. You only have to post once and Posterous will take care of everything including text, videos, and pictures. Posterous will post your content to the appropriate platforms which will save you time. You will not have to waste time logging into and posting on multiple websites. This is how you can leverage your social media efforts.
