My Social Media Journey as a Small Business Owner Continues!
Radio is the oldest and still most dominant form of social media marketing. However, I see the benefit that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have had on my radio show business.
While the show itself is the most valuable property in my radio- based small business, my web site is probably a close second. It links all of the different social media platforms together and provides me with an opportunity to capitalize on the eyeballs that I’m able to attract with my content. And content is what it’s all about. This is the foundation for my Social Media Marketing strategy.
I got involved with radio because I thought that the marketing of the radio show would provide me with an opportunity to communicate with my database (wonderful subscribers!) on a regular basis. It has been highly successful in keeping me in touch with all of my contacts throughout the recession.
While radio is the basic platform for my interaction Facebook, Linked In and Twitter help me to attract people I don’t know – yet. I was not able to get involved in this world without the help of some experienced consultants. LinkedIn was mostly self taught but Facebook I just don’t have a clue… Yet!
Twitter, the first person that I was going to work with as a Twitter consultant was actually insulted because I didn’t think Twitter would last. Now, Twitter helps my content circle the globe and helps me target my audience. It helps me build an audience that my advertisers want to reach.
I really don’t have a lot of social media tips and tricks that I can share. I think you have to learn them all on your own. The basics are to simply find somebody who understands the platform you’re interested in marketing your business on, and bring that person on board as a consultant.
This brings me to the title for this post – Social Media Marketing Services for Small Business.
I’m a doer. That means that I try new things, test them and see how they work. I’ve followed the advice of friends and peeps in the business of Social Media and Digital Marketing and some of it has been great and some of it well… just average.
I want to share with you a few tips I learned the “Hard” way while considering Social Media Marketing Services:
- There is no substitute for smart work! You have to put in the time regardless of who’s helping you or who you are paying.
- Do not depend on anyone. Hire if you have to, but increase your ROI by learning! –Learn as you pay!
- Make sure the person or company you pick, does their marketing they way they are asking you to do yours.
- When possible look around your office and ask yourself: Who here can run with this?
- Be patient! It’s not advertising, it’s marketing… It takes time for an audience know, like and trust you.
I learned LinkedIn by myself. It’s real basic and powerful to a certain extent. I find it to be very limited unless you’re searching for a specific individual. However, I’ve created a good Linked In mailing list for my radio show, and it works for me.
I send out a weekly mass e-mail to my contacts. I use a content management system. Over the course of the three years that I’ve been doing the show I’ve gotten the list so clean that people rarely if ever opt out at this point. I keep the communications clear and concise. I don’t overload my list with frivolous emails
My Twitter consultant– @socialmedia305–helped me to get my recently published article on the Miami condo market to a number of people in the United States, China, India, Belgium, the UK, South Africa and other places across the globe. This is important to a number of my advertisers because they have international businesses. Johnny @socialmedia305 taught me the importance of writing a good tweet. To have the right syntax and grammar and spelling is of utmost importance in the Twitter world.
Facebook is a world unto itself. Its graphics power and ability to tell a continuing story makes it a very significant tool to use. Again, I use a consultant to help me build my marketing on Facebook. I haven’t seen a lot of success on this platform yet. I’m sure it’s because I focus most on the web page, radio and Twitter.
Facebook is so complicated for me to manipulate in my mind and get a handle on that I prefer to leave it to a professional. But as time goes on I plan to take more control of the Facebook content add custom graphics and develop a strategy that integrates well with the rest of my outposts.
For my website I like WordPress. It is simple and easy to use. It’s wonderful at providing the metrics on who has visited. I tried other platforms like Drupal and found that the most basic is the best. Once you have your web site up its only as good as the content provided on it.
Over the one year that we’ve had our WordPress web site up we have seen impressions reach over 10,000 in some months. It’s not easy to keep people coming back. You have to do things like create content at 8:00 pm on Friday nights which is when I’m writing this piece.
Content is what it’s all about. Content on each platform drives you to the other platforms. Content that gets people on your site and keeps them there. And it’s all about compelling content. If you’ve got good content, eyeballs will find you, and so will the advertisers and their customers.
Content is what Social Media Marketing is fed. It’s what tell Google how relevant your stuff is to the search query, and what tells the visitor how relevant to their needs your site is.
So get to it! Jump right in! Social media fits everybody’s small business. You just have to get started and once you do, you won’t stop.
If You Enjoyed This Post, Please Don’t Stop Enjoying Yourself and Subscribe To Our Updates!
