Q: What is social media and how can I use it to help my small business?
A: The term "social media" is used to describe interactive communities on the Web. There are a whole lot of different social media websites. Some of the more popular are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and blogs.
Social media marketing can help most small businesses boost sales. Small business owners use social media to build relationships, which indirectly increases sales. The practice of using social media builds a business's database of contacts and connections, increases visibility to prospective customers, and gets the word out about their products and services in creative ways. The first thing you can do to use social media to help your business is to get your toes wet. Start by finding a blog that you enjoy reading that is related in some way to your business and regularly post comments on it. What you are doing is starting a conversation with the blog owner and its readers. You're building relationships.
If you sign each of your posts with your name and Web address, you are marketing your business and hopefully driving new traffic to your website.
Another easy place to get started is to create an account at Facebook or LinkedIn.
With these types of accounts you can make friends, build relationships, talk about your business services and products, and direct people to your company website. Facebook, for example, has over 500 million active
users with more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. That is a very powerful platform on which to build a presence.Another way is to start a blog for your business. In one action you can give your company a Web presence, start building relationships, and get the word out about your products and services.
How successful you are at marketing your business with social media will depend on how much you put into it. Social media marketing takes commitment, effort and passion to make it work.
Social media are all about relationships. To be successful, you need to understand how to build and use those relationships. In much the same way, you are already building relationships and networking in the physical world, networking in the digital world isn't really that big of a stretch.
Social media marketing can be a phenomenal marketing tool for small businesses.
Laurel Eriksen is owner of Eriksen Web Design (www.eriksenwebdesign.com), a small business Web design and marketing firm based in Ranch Cucamonga.
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