Is Your Small Business Socially Acceptable?

Our society is becoming more and more interconnected each and every day.  Today people are constantly posting “tweets” on Twitter and updating their Facebook status; and in many cases, doing so from mobile devices.  Within these social media channels there is a great deal of marketing potential available for businesses willing to step outside their comfort zone of “tried and true” marketing tactics.

The costs are nil, aside from the time you decide to devote to the campaign.  This can have major implications for small businesses because if you can effectively generate sales from the campaign you are doing so at zero cost.

Currently there are 300,000 small businesses actively participating in some form of social media marketing.  Only a handful of these companies are focused on using professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn while others utilize platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and/or MySpace.

There are a lot of reasons companies start marketing through social media, for starters these channels provide a great way for building an audience of potential buyers quickly.

More often than not these companies claimed to be using the social media channels in order to answer customer questions, reference materials for educational purposes and participate in company level networking.  Once someone creates a widely adoptable model to sell directly via social media, then we will see many more companies begin to sell directly through social media.

Here are a few recommendations that should put you at a good starting point for your social media marketing campaign.

• Get a LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is the most professional of all the social media networking interfaces and is becoming widely used by many professionals in many different fields.  Simply start connecting to your customers and suppliers to build your network as wide as possible.  Eventually create a company group in order to post company news and other important updates/information.

• Create a business profile on Facebook. Initially utilize Facebook like LinkedIn; as another way of publishing company news and information and growing a network of “Friends.”

• Get Creative. Start brainstorming some ways to creatively illustrate how your business adds value to your customers (this can be just about anything, from diagramming to a video).

These three steps will give you a good base from which to launch an effective social media campaign; building the networks out first is crucial to ensure that you have maximum exposure.

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