When properly utilized, social media is a great business marketing tool. Let’s go over a few points and discuss the best social media options and tips to help your business make the most of social media.
Stand Out Among the Crowd
Most small businesses aren’t able to compete on high volume keywords in search rankings unless they operate in niche markets. For example, a local shoe shop will find it very difficult to rank highly in search engines for searches such as “shoes,” “pumps” or “trainers.” This is usually because large companies already have well-established websites, have a high volume of traffic regularly visiting them and lots of links back to their site.
However, this doesn’t mean that small companies can’t succeed online. Local search is becoming ever more common and small businesses can utilize this to reach their geographical target market. To put it simply, local search is how you rank based on your keywords in areas near you. The power of local search can be seen by doing a quick search for “taxi.” Google will automatically pull up results for taxi companies near your location.
Some easy ways to influence local search results are as follows:
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Make sure your website mentions your company’s address on the homepage and in the metadata.
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Make sure your company is listed on Google+ Local.
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Make sure your company has a Facebook business page.
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Try and encourage customers to write positive reviews for your business on review sites, especially on your Google+ business page. But don’t try and fake these reviews as you will be penalized.
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Be active on your social channels and try to engage with your target market.
Common Social Media Platforms Businesses Use:
Facebook – Facebook is great for reaching out to customers because it is the number one used social media platform, boasting over 1 billion members. It also has some great SEO benefits such as page ‘Likes’ and other share functions that help build page authority.
Google+ – Often thought of as a failed Facebook clone, Google+ actually does have some great features that are useful to businesses. Firstly, Google+ allows you to create author rank, which can add authority to websites and blogs you write for. Secondly, since it’s run by Google, the world’s largest search engine, your business’s information can easily be indexed.
Twitter – Can be very useful for spreading company news and engaging with customers. Posting tweets with photos or links are great ways to share your company’s content and pages.
YouTube – Great for expressing brand creativity and sharing content related to your business. Videos will often appear near the top of common search engine searches, so clips like how-to instructionals can be a good way to get people to visit your site.
Pinterest – Definitely not for every company. Pinterest is great for creative companies who have a lot of visual examples of useful products, services or campaigns, such as those that focus on crafting or home décor. These types of businesses typically prosper on Pinterest due to the platform’s image sharing style.
The below infographic shows some great reasons why both an online and social media presence are crucial for small businesses to gain exposure:
This infographic was designed by VistaPrint UK
About the Author: Sam Fisher is an online marketing expert who has previously worked as a freelance web designer and an SEO executive. Currently, he works in the online content and PR industry, which allows him to offer a unique perspective on the current SEO and social media marketing trends.
