Small Business

Friends. Status updates. Tweets. Followers. Endorsements. Connections. This is the language of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. If you aren’t speaking it, you could be missing out on some very real business opportunities. Consider the statistics:

   91% of business to business decision makers use social media
   200 million users spend four billion minutes on Facebook daily
   Someone adds a new LinkedIn profile every second
   The average stay on YouTube is 16 – 20 minutes, with 15 page visits
   Users send 201 Tweets per second

Why social media matters

As a small business, you are always looking for creative and cost-effective ways to promote your business, reach new customers and build your brand. Social media gives you the tools to create and engage with business-focused communities. You can connect instantly with peers and customers, provide up-to-date information specific to your company, product and/or service and promote events or announcements. All at low cost to your business. 

Not sure where to begin? Understanding what each site provides is a good start. And once you’re familiar with the functionality, begin with the basics. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Facebook:

Helps you connect and share with the people in your life; build a personal profile and add friends; build a business page and add fans; post events, messages and share photos/images; start a group or participate in an existing one.

Getting started:

If you have a personal Facebook page, start a group or fan page for your business. Be aware that Facebook is more of a social site rather than a business site, so focus your content on awareness and information as opposed to “hard sell.” You can invite “friends” to build your fan base, but provide only on business information. Post announcements, promote events and link to your Web site for more information.

Twitter:

Communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, 140-character responses (tweets) to one simple question: What are you doing?

Getting Started:

Using Twitter for business is a great way to establish yourself as an “expert” in your field. What you tweet about builds your online credibility so focus on the right frequency and subjects of interest to peers that add value to them -- your industry, new business strategies or running a small business. And make sure that the people you choose to follow provide value-added information that can help you run your business.

LinkedIn:

Share information with colleagues and customers and exchange ideas and opportunities by building a profile, adding connections, receiving/making recommendations and joining industry groups.

Getting Started:

Create a profile on LinkedIn so you can start “business conversations” by promoting yourself and your business simultaneously. Ask for recommendations from colleagues and customers and add links to your Web site and Facebook page. You can also join industry groups/communities, where you can access and share free advice specific to your market or running a small business.

YouTube:

Watch and post videos to share with a global audience.

Getting Started:

If you have any video that relates to your business – promotional footage, event coverage, “how to videos” or on-camera interviews – post it on YouTube. It’s a great way to get your face associated with your business and to inject some creativity in how you reach customers. Be sure to link to the video from your other social networking sites for maximum exposure.

For small business, social media is a great tool because it’s free, simple to use and allows you to engage a large audience that would be harder to reach with traditional marketing. So don’t be afraid to test it out and see how it can work for your business. And remember, anything that you do online can be interconnected. If you’ve already invested in a Web site, you can use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and/or LinkedIn to provide new and existing audiences with timely information while driving traffic back to your site.

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