Social Media
Five tips for building your social media profile this holiday season
Social media marketing is a fantastic way for small businesses to get their messages and offers to market quickly, cheaply and with relatively little time commitment. And if you’ve been considering getting into social media, now’s the time. With the holidays approaching, you’ll have lots to talk about with both your existing customers — by providing them with promotional offers, incentives or even just the inside scoop on new products — and with potential new customers who you can attract by offering interesting and useful content. This last point is extremely important. Social media marketing truly is a conversation, and so you must give your “followers” more than just sales pitches. You have to give them a reason to engage with your brand or business. To optimize results, you need to determine your strategy that will guide your social media efforts and keep you focused on your goals. The more you put in, the more you’ll likely get out.
Digital Marketing for Small Business
Having an online marketing strategy has become an essential part of doing business, especially for small and medium enterprises. The Internet enables small companies to keep pace with large competitors through targeted niche marketing and can help you easily reach customers who are seeking unique items that may not be carried by mass-market companies.
How to Use Social Media in Your Small Business
Today’s consumers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than ever before. And they are also a lot more vocal about their expectations. One way for small businesses to meet — and exceed — these expectations is through social media tools that allow for two-way communication. Here’s what you need to know.
Using Social Media for Business
Each month, The Pulse provides market research insights gained by polling small business customers like you.
Our latest survey* finds that only 16% of small business owners are using social media tools and websites – such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs – in any significant way for business purposes, even though almost half of those surveyed use these sites in their personal lives.
Beyond the Brochure Website
The standard brochure website includes a few basic pages like home, about and services, and possibly a few more which are specific to the firm. It’s static. It does the job of a brochure and that’s it. Five years ago a brochure website was adequate but today clients expect more. Fortunately, you can now deliver valuable information and tools that give clients and prospects good reason to return to your site often. With open-source software and plug-ins available, moving beyond the brochure website is not beyond a reasonable budget. Here are a few options.
Use Networking to Grow Your Clientele and Build Brand Power
By Joel Scopelleti, Partner and operator of Carick Home Improvements (www.carickhome.com)
While repeat customers and referrals are an excellent source of business, any tradesperson worth his salt knows the true value of networking. Forget about schmoozing prospects on the golf course. These days, drumming up new business is all about building strategic alliances and extending a welcoming hand to a wide array of social contacts.
Blogging Made Easy
As a lawyer, architect, or veterinarian you may be thinking about starting a blog to communicate with your clients and to attract new ones. But you may also be concerned that there are too many blogs in your field already, Don’t worry. The fact is, blogs – whether for business or not – reflect the values and perspectives of their individual writers. On the Internet, the pool of blog visitors is so large that there is opportunity for you to distinguish your blog from the rest and attract a following of readers who like your particular spin on things.
A Professional's Guide to Using Twitter
By Small Business Expert Roger Pierce, www.BizLaunch.ca
You've heard of it and it sounds, well, silly. A case can be made for this position but this article will argue the opposite. Be it resolved: Twitter is a valuable medium for professionals.
Twitter is the massive, social networking site that began with the question: ""What are you doing?"" They have recently repositioned to: ""See what people are saying about..."" From there, people say whatever they want.
