Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, RSS, FlickR, Pinterest, among scores of others are referred to daily by reporters, our kids and grandkids, newspapers, commercials and billboards - everyone seems to be social these days.
Why is it so popular and why is it important for entrepreneurs to participate?Having a presence on social media, no matter how small, is arguably more important than having a regular newsletter or mailing.
Small businesses have well-founded support in their communities already - why not provide another way for them to connect with you? Social media helps build customer relationships, gain recognition in the community, and helps you interact and engage with customers personally.
Luckily, social media doesn't require us to be experts or sophisticated 'techies' and no budget is needed.
It is truly one of the only forms of free advertising.
There are many books and articles that offer training and support.
How do entrepreneurs get involved?
- First, decide if social media is something the district can do or will you farm out the work to an intern, family member or tech company like blogmutt.
com, iwriter and others to write material for you. - Second, just like any project or program, someone needs to be responsible for regularly managing and updating your social media sites.
A general recommendation is for the project lead to spend one or two hours a week on social media and use an social media management group like HootSuite (see below for links to more resources) to schedule posts to multiple social sites.
Mistakes to avoid:
- Spamming on other people's posts,
- Posting every hour or posting repeats,
- Terrible spelling or grammar,
- DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS, PEOPLE FEEL THEY ARE BEING YELLED AT,
- Typing in text lingo.
OMG.
, - Using acronyms,
- Maintain the barrier between your business accounts and your personal accounts.
They talk about all sorts of subjects, including businesses like yours, right in your town or city.
Why not connect with them through free social media? Research has shown that it takes a minimum of 10 touches or encounters for people to remember your business and up to 40 touches to make them buy from you and refer your business to colleagues.
How much in advertising dollars would it take to touch a potential customer 40 times? And there are over 1 billion searches per day at Google, many of them for your products or services, right in your town or city.
They search from home with their computers, on the train with their iPads, and even standing on a street corner, with their smart phones, waiting for the light to turn green.
Regardless of what they use or where they are...
ask yourself...
are they finding you or your competitor? Forget the paper advertisements.
People are looking to find you online, so get out there and get social!