Step one of becoming the “digital mayor of your town” was to develop a deep knowledge of your community so it could later be used to successfully market your services. Now that you have that established and people know who you are, it’s time to dive deeper into the “keys to the city” that will help turn more prospects into customers.
Having an intimate understanding of what your local community desires from a business allows you to get to the front of the line with your answer to their questions…maybe even ones they don’t realize they have just yet. Front of mind placement within the pulse of your town will fastrack your ability to raise awareness around your product or service, as you then lead people by the hand down the sales funnel.
Scaling your business and increasing revenue is both possible and feasible with our handy-dandy guide on using the power of social media and a Google listing to get there quicker.
LinkedIn for Business
Since 2003, LinkedIn has been the online hub for business professionals across every industry to network, share expertise, and create original content. Although that is its main focus, the real power lies in its ability to market your products or services in the B2B arena. After creating that initial brand awareness, you can increase engagement through meaningful posts, and ultimately drive traffic to your website or landing page for the all-important customer acquisition.
Why do you need to be active on it?
You can:
- Grow your professional network
- Post job openings to attract talent
- Become a thought leader in your industry
- Drive website traffic
- Learn from other successful business owners
With nearly 675 million total members (more than 184 million of them in the United States alone), you can’t miss out on this necessary landscape to have a presence on.
Facebook for Business
If you think Facebook is only important for keeping in touch with high school friends, you are selling yourself way short. Nearly a third of the global population use this platform each and every month. That may not be as surprising as the fact that two-thirds of users visit a local business Facebook page one or more times a week. That’s 1.6 billion people!
Some tips for leveraging your Facebook page are:
- Add social buttons on your website
- Use a social scheduling tool to plan posts in advance (we like Hootsuite)
- Include a link on your other social media pages
- Incorporate it into any online directories you have a profile on
Satisfied customers may seek out your business and they can leave reviews on your page, only further strengthening your online reputation score, an extremely important metric. Our world is full of multi-taskers, so why not show up in a place where they’re taking care of personal AND business “errands.”
This saves them the trouble of having to leave Facebook to try and find you in other online forums, which many won’t do anyways. Make it easy on them!
Instagram for Business
Whether you’re a painter, brick and mortar, or e-commerce store, you have an active and engaged audience on Instagram. Once viewed as simply a generational tool for sharing photos, it continues to attract top brands who are taking advantage of its power for their business.
Around 1 billion users frequent this platform and are pulling out their credit cards on a regular basis to make purchases. With a pool that large to choose from, it might seem overwhelming locating those who will actually buy from you.
But it doesn’t need to be that way, so take a deep breath…and work to adopt a ‘Tribe’ mentality. For you this means starting small with one-on-one engagement. Establishing these personal relationships and tapping into niche hashtags will help create a space unique to your business.
Since Facebook owns Instagram, it makes your job a lot easier because you can manage both within the Facebook platform. It’s a nice time saver, and will free up more time to put out high-quality content that your audience is ACTIVELY looking for.
Twitter for Business
Social listening is a skill that every business should invest in, whether you’re a team of one or one hundred. You can gather sentiments around your industry, brand, products, or services in real-time, and respond to ensure positive reviews keep trickling your way.
Twitter is a great tool for this activity, although you should still be monitoring what people are saying across all of your online mediums. Many people choose to limit what type of topics they cover on their dedicated Twitter page for business, and save politics and other conversations for a personal account.
Some additional benefits are:
- Customer service
- Monitor competitors
- Engage with customers
- Create business networks
With millions of people on this platform, positioning your content strategically will gain your business a lucrative amount of exposure. Of course you can also promote your products and services here, but harnessing its true power of creating brand ambassadors is what you truly want to tap into.
It’s a cost effective way to really stand out in the customer service department.
Google My Business
Particularly effective for small, local businesses, Google My Business is truly a wonderful tool that when leveraged successfully can help you spread your wings into other markets. This should be a goal of your business, and if it isn’t…well it should be after today!
Why make the extra effort?
- 85% of people put as much weight on online reviews as personal ones
- 70% make a purchase or visit a store after a search
- 4 out of 5 customers seek out local information on search engines.
With this medium, you can add pictures of your products, services, and events. A great tip is to post updates, similar to your social media channels, but only once or twice a week. The dashboard centralizes all your information on Google such as Maps, Search, and reviews.
Using the insights gleaned for SEO (search engine optimization) can help you rise in the Google rankings and get more eyes to your website, products, and services. The phone ringing or email requests from customers is what the goal is here.
Musselwhite Marketing and Social media
If you’re not ready just yet to devote substantial time to setting up these tools for your business, we are ready and willing to bring our expertise as digital marketing experts into the equation. But how do we know for sure that these tools are worth investing time and capital in? For over 10 years, our focus has been on increasing the online visibility of our clients and our own business.
And let’s just say, we wish we knew back then just how essential it is to become proficient in each one. Combine them all into a goody-bag of customer attraction and you’ll see why the term “social media expert” carries a lot more weight today than it did 10 years ago.
Our success is something we believe in sharing, and we’d love to help SHOW you the power of these tools that are simply waiting to be tapped into. Join us on a free 15 minute discovery session and we’ll be happy to discuss it in more detail, and see if it’s the right fit for your business.
