New Media Chatter » Blog Archive » 6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business

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Someone somewhere once said, “Don’t forget about the little guy.” I guess I could Google the answer, but I am to lazy to bother. It just sounded like a good opening line for this post.

Yesterday, a friend of mine who owns a local main street business here in lovely San Carlos, California. I was preaching, evangelizing , chatting about the benefits of Social Media and how it can help brands gain awareness. He quickly looked at me and said “What about the regular folks? You know the guys like me without a big budget?”  After the shock of having him finally engage me in a conversation about what I do wore off, I told him I would write a blog post with my answer. (Hey anything to get traffic.. right?” So here you go Ed. This one is for you. I would like to share with you my thoughts, in list form, cause people like lists. Here are 5 ways a local business can use social media to gain awareness.

-Have a website and a blog. Simple right? One mistake I see is that companies create the website but not the blog. You need to have a blog. It allows your clients to get more insight into what you do, your background, your history and more. If you make sure to tag your articles, use keywords, etc this will help people stumble across you on google.

-Get on Twitter. Yep, here comes Twitter again, its power can not be denied. You need to get on there and start “Tweeting” posting information, insight, background..(wait it is just like a blog! Yes it is, it is called micro-blogging!) Here is the key for success, make sure to comment back to others and engage in conversation. Shhh, this will be our secret.

-Get a Facebook page. Like you did not see this one coming right? You need to have a fanpage. Are you going to get 100,000 fans? No. Do you need a 100,000 fans? No. Will having conversations with some local people, having local people join help with your awareness in your community? You bet. The key here is when people comment on your fanpage and you comment back, their friends will see it. It is worth its wait in gold.

-Your the expert.  So what I like to tell people is setup your website like your the expert. So if your my friend Ed, you are Ed The Real Estate agent. You are Ed, the most knowledgeable Real Estate Agent in San Carlos. Make sure to blog about Real Estate in our area. Your a local guy, talking about homes in New York is not going to make you money. Talking about Homes here in San Carlos, will make you  money. When that family who needs an agent thinks ” We need a bigger home, who is that online guy from Facebook?” You get the idea.

-Link Love. Make sure to link to other local businesses on your website. They will return the favor. Plus it helps with your Google Page Rank

-Find ways to use online tools in a different way. Try things out. Maybe take orders via Twitter.  Offer to send pictures of products via email.  Give out coupon codes on Facebook. The possibilities are endless. I am talking about taking chances and thinking outside the box.

Bonus tip: Go to Meetups, Tweetups, mixtures or whatever they are called these days. They are all over the place and local. Get out there.

So what are some of the tips I forgot? There must be a ton.

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This post was written by davepeck on September 9, 2009

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another reminder that social media tools are focusing the world wide web on your neighborhood