Social media for small business is essential for any Internet marketing campaign
Some of you might remember the days when web design was new. Designing a website was a bit of a challenge but once completed, it was fairly easy to rank in Yahoo, Lycos and other long forgotten search engines.
Why was it so easy back then?
There really was no social media for small business or anyone else. The closest thing we had to social media back then were online bulletin boards and networks like CompuServe and AOL. Social media for small business has come a long way since then!
As far as we have come, social media still remains a bit of a mystery for most small businesses in 2016. Although the traditional website remains the hub of activity, it is now more important than ever to leverage multiple traffic streams for any Internet marketing campaign.
Think of your web project as something similar to a “mutual fund”:
Some areas may be up or down as far as traffic and rankings, while others might be trending. All of it laser focused towards driving visitors (or perhaps buyers) to your website.
Learning the basics is a must towards mastering social media for small business
If you haven’t created or managed a Facebook or Twitter page yet, it can be a daunting experience:
Take some time to read through the guide and become familiar with one social media platform at a time. Start with Facebook or Twitter, which are the biggest social media channels. If you’re in a real estate business, these are a must as well as YouTube.
Like anything else, it takes time to learn and master social media…
Take your time and do a little at a time until you get the hang of it. Don’t worry it gets easier. Like riding a bike! As part of our Vermont web design services, please contact us if you need assistance with social media.
YouTube is owned by Google so you can safely bet that it is a highly influential resource in terms of ranking higher on Google itself
There are many methods and ways to use YouTube properly, which will be explained in a future post. For now, set up your Google+ account and YouTube channel and post a video or two.
Add a powerful SEO punch to your video:
Make sure to add your web link to the top of the description area of each YouTube video. Utilize the annotations and card functions within YouTube. Also, add social media icons to your website to complete the cycle.
Create short YouTube videos as a promo to encourage people to visit your website. Do NOT use copyrighted material such as images and music.
Social media for small business 2016 tips:
The number one gripe that I hear from my clients about social media is the time it takes to implement it. Most people think that you must sit at a computer all day, randomly posting to each social media platform.
Fortunately, that is not the case:
Here are some tools that I use to manage social media campaigns for my clients, and for my own websites:
For managing multiple social media campaigns, I find that HootSuite is a must! It allows you to post to multiple social media platforms at once and you can schedule the posts, tweets, etc. far in advance. Best days to post are weekdays.
- Snip.ly is a great tool for social media sharing. When you share an article or page, etc. it automatically places a small banner at the bottom of the page to attract visitors to your website.
- Tweepi is great for Twitter but I can no longer recommend the paid version as it no longer offers an “unfollow” option, which is very important.
- Twitterfeed: This tool allows you to share content from people you trust without having to manually tweet their latest posts.
- TwitterCounter: See at a glance how many Twitter followers you have added over the last month or 6 months.
- TweetAdder: Twitter marketing and promotion that works within the rules of Twitter
- Anything I can do to automate and make life easier is a big plus. FPTraffic is a must for automating Facebook posts and increasing Likes.
- How to make videos for YouTube? For generating small presentation web videos, I use VideoMakerFX. It works quick and easy and comes with the option for a subscription to additional ProThemes, and additional themes.
The days of a “set it and forget it” website have long since passed and social media signals are important factors in driving visitors to your website.
How and what you post are critically important as well…
Your strategy should be to drive people to your website, so create engaging posts and tweets that will do just that. Make sure to share others posts and tweets as well.
Givers gain:
A little goodwill on your part will pay off down the road when people start engaging with you and sharing your content. If you choose to post only your own content and do not attempt to gain followers, you may as well be sitting on a mansion in the swamp. It might be a beautiful mansion but no one will ever see it unless you share and share alike with others.
No one likes to see a generic bland space at the top of the page (or in the case of Twitter, an egg shaped icon on a blue background). Is that the way you want people to see your business? Would you advertise on a billboard with something like that? Sounds kind of stupid, right? Well it is, and many small businesses do just that.
Then, they wonder why no one engages with them on social media and why their website traffic is always low.
No one is getting ranked for “keyword stuffing” or “link farms” anymore, so stop doing it
If you don’t, more than likely you will suffer the consequences and penalties:
There are other factors to consider for a successful Internet marketing campaign such as high power backlinks. More on all of this later but for now, get your feet wet in social media for small business 2016. If you choose not to get involved, that’s what we are here for. Contact us or call 802-355-8775 now to arrange for social media campaign services and we’ll set up a plan that accommodates your budget.
