Is Your Small Business Being Social Enough?

[image error]You are running a small business that seems to be stuck in neutral and you can’t quite figure out why that is. If that’s the case, have you checked to see whether or not you’re being social enough?

For the successful small business person, he or she has gravitated toward and not away from social media as part of their online market scheme, especially given the fact that more and more consumers are using social media in their everyday lives.

With a successful social media campaign, small businesses can bring more traffic to their site, boost branding awareness of the products and/or services they offer, and build a relationship with both present and potential customers.

According to research (2,200 interviews of business owners and major executives at companies with fewer than 500 employees) provided earlier this year at the “Insights: Small Business Summit” in Northern California, approximately 80 percent of small business owners and high-level executives report they now utilize a social network, however only 57 percent report doing so as a component of a marketing plan.

The research noted:

LinkedIn was most utilized for business purposes (50 percent) and the least in regards to personal usage by major executives (9 percent);
Twitter gets the second highest usage by businesses (38 percent) and third highest when it comes to personal reasons (21 percent);
Google+ saw the third most usage for business (26 percent) and the second most utilization for personal purposes (26 percent);
Facebook received the least amount of business usage (12 percent) and most utilization for personal reasons (30 percent).

In the event you have been slow to the dance when it comes to social media usage for your small business, keep these things in mind:

Use social media to promote events – Social media is a great venue to promote events involving your company. If you are holding an upcoming sale, have promotional items the public should know about, seminars etc., make sure the word gets out on your Facebook fan page, Twitter page, Google+ page, Pinterest, any YouTube presence you have and more. The pages can and should also be used to share industry related information with consumers. In the event you run a small business that promotes healthy ways of life, use your social media connections to make note of when you’re running seminars on healthy eating and working out, etc.
Use social media to link to worthwhile news – Your business that promotes healthy means by which to live should use social media to link to studies and research on how to eat better, exercise better, monitor one’s health, etc. If your business is sponsoring an event to test people’s cholesterol for example, use social media to spread the word about who, what, where and when.
Use social media to network with others – Given that networking is a major part of successfully promoting one’s business, social media plays an important role here. While you are not out to give your competition free advertising, it essentially comes down to scratching their backs while they do the same for you when it is a win-win proposition for everyone involved. This is also true with those that do not compete with you. The realtor that is asking for a little plug on your social media channels will hopefully be willing to do the same on his or her venues to promote your business.

At the end of the day, you may be surprised the positive return on investment (ROI) you receive from using social media to promote your small business.

Plus the fact, being a social business owner is sure better than being anti-social.

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