Social Media Series for Small Business – An In-depth Look at Facebook for Your Small Business

If you've been following our Social Media Series for Small Business, you know we've now talked about which Social Media sites are best for your business, what good posting strategies you should employ and how you can re-use content to enhance your overall social media strategy.

With this post, we want to start to dive a little deeper into each Social Media platform with a more detailed look at Facebook for your small business.

Click above to take a look at an enhanced version of our Social Media for Small Business Infographic.

As we discussed before, Facebook has the most content shared of the sites we are reviewing with more than 1.3 billion users and growing.

Of all the options we've looked at, Facebook offers a more personal approach for small businesses than some of the other platforms. Facebook is known for personal connections so it’s only natural for small businesses to make this their platform of choice.

But it does depend on where you can find your customers. If you are a B2C (Business-to-Consumer) operation, Facebook may be a really good option for you. With 1.3 billion users, it’s safe to say at least a good chunk of your consumers are on Facebook.

But it may also be a good option for B2B (Business-to-Business) if those businesses are small businesses.

Facebook offers the opportunity to connect, have conversations and get to know your followers.

We recommend posting 2 - 4 times per day, including shares, likes and comments. A good mix might look like this:

1. Post a link to a new blog post weekly or bi-weekly that is not a sales pitch, but offers valuable information to your customers and prospects
2. Regularly post your latest how-to videos from YouTube
3. Daily like, share or comment on an item of interest from one of your followers that will enhance the experience to your followers
4. Engage in strategic conversation around topics important to your business and your followers
5. Follow others who will enhance the experience from your page as well as customers and potential customers
6. Post testimonials from current customers
7. Enhance the experience with add-ins like Pinterest and Foursquare if they are right for your business
8. Increase opportunities and followers by purchasing Facebook advertising

It’s also important to remember what NOT to do on Facebook:

• Don’t get political or pontificate
• Don’t over post, share, like or comment
• Don’t post your personal life on your business Facebook page

The key to every good social media strategy is to have a plan, think it through. Your social media should tie into your overall organizational goals. Be sure to think like your customer and be genuine. Above all #BeStrategic.

We would love it if you would share some ways you have successfully (or not so successfully – because we can all learn from that too!) integrated Facebook into your small business social media plan.

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Social Media Series for Small Business: Can Old Content Still Benefit You?

Based on our earlier articles in this series, you should be investing a good bit of time focusing on posting to the best social media platforms for your business. You should have a good mix of your own content and shares, likes, pins, replies and retweets of other pertinent content.

Once you get into a rhythm here, you have one thing for sure. A lot of content! But don’t let it go to waste.

Make the most of previously developed content by re-posting, pinning, sharing and tweeting. With so many competing posts, you can and should garner a fresh audience for your re-posts of old content.

But when is the best time to re-post old content?

• About a week after you posted it initially.
•  Again on pertinent occasions – like Take Your Child to Work Day if your article has something to do with career building activities for children.
• Whenever you really need to post something and simply don’t have the time or passion to write something new!

You can even freshen up old articles, add new information and a new title and release them again.

We’re not saying that every article should be the same article by any means. But we want you to remember that you do have a toolkit to pull from when needed and it’s a good way to add to the content you are putting out there.

Have you added any of our suggestions to your social media strategy? We’d love to hear from you!

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Social Media Series for Small Business: Are You Integrating Good Posting Strategies into Your Social Media Plan?

To post or not to post, that is the question. With so many different social media options available to your small business now, how do you know how often to post and when you’ve gone over the top?

You want to strike the best balance in your social media postings so you are engaging your audience but not pushing them to the point of hiding your posts.

Let’s look again at our Social Media for Small Businesses Infographic for some tips to incorporate in your social media plan using the major social media sites.

As you’ll see, different social media sites require a different level of commitment. You shouldn’t, for instance, post on any other site the same amount you post on Twitter or pin on Pinterest. You will have followers, friends and circles running for the hills!

Let’s examine good netiquette for each site:

Facebook

For Facebook no more than 2 - 4 posts per day are recommended, but keep in mind that includes shares, likes and comments you make to others’ posts which will also show up on your wall and be seen by your followers. We post our own content a few times per week to our ProfessionalEdge Facebook page and then share, like and engage in conversation for the rest of the week.

Instagram

Instagram is more of a gallery of photos and video so posts per day don’t really matter, as long as whatever posts you make are relevant to your followers.

Google+

Regular and consistent (ideally daily like Facebook) posts and conversations are key to making the most of Google+. You may have a different audience here so you can re-post some of the things you have pinned and posted everywhere else.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is all about the conversation. 2 - 4 posts per week is a good measure, but it is more important to participate in conversations with group members and connections to make the most of this service.

Pinterest

Pin away to your heart’s content – it’s addicting! For your business, post as much as you can to your boards and then re-pin often so it’s fresh and seen by followers. One note here – be sure to use the description wisely as it can only enhance the story told by your picture. Share meaningful

Pinterest pins to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter pages as well (but count them as posts on those sites when you do!).

Twitter

Twitter has become a massive universe all its own and it never stops. It too can be addicting if you let it! Pre-schedule tweets for your business in advance to maximize your time investment. Using one of several tools available this can take a bit of time every few weeks, but it is well worth the effort not to have to remember to post specific topics each day. Then you can take a few minutes a couple times a day to browse through other’s tweets, retweet and engage in conversation.

YouTube

With YouTube, you should commit yourself to uploading a new video once a week or once a month (whatever you’re capable of) and stick to it. Remember, YouTube is owned by Google so posts by design increase your search engine standing. Be sure to include relevant meta tags to help searchers find your content.

The bottom line when you are posting to social media sites is to be consistent, but don’t overdo it. Don’t be that “friend” who likes and shares every post she comes across and then makes them public so you have to scroll over them to get to something worth reading. Or, worse yet, hide her content so you don’t have to navigate around it.

The goal is to come up with a strategy that works best for your business and meets your goals and objectives. Make true connections and enhance your success!

Let us know what you find works best for your business!

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Social Media for Small Business: Which Social Media Platform is Right for Me?

As a small business, you have many challenges you face every day. Not only is your time spread thin, your dollars are stretched tighter than pantyhose on Miss Piggy. And you still have to work on your business while you are working in your business.

Here is an important quote from Henry Ford.

“A man who stops advertising to save money

is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”

Even with everything else you have going on in your business, you must make the time and the investment to market your business. For small businesses, social media is an excellent way to continue to market your business without a large investment of money. But it does take time, and you have to start somewhere. So how do you navigate the many different social media opportunities available to you?

To help cut through some of the clutter, this will be the first in a series of articles on Social Media for Small Business. We will start with the top seven social media sites that are appropriate for small business – Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.

To aid in breaking down the overwhelming amount of information, we've created an infographic that illustrates the most useful information about each of these sites. Click on the graphic to open a larger version in a new window.

In this article, we will focus on how to determine which social media opportunities will work best for your business.

Let’s start with what each of these sites can do for you.

Facebook is a social networking site with 1.3 billion users and growing rapidly. Because of this high number of users, it is where the highest amount of content is shared. Facebook is a medium for businesses who want to connect with individuals or other small businesses. It’s a great place to post important information about your business and to have conversations with customers and potential customers about how you can meet their needs.

Instagram is a visual marketing site with 150 million users. It allows you to relate to consumers through pictures and video. Instagram is a medium used by photographers and videographers to showcase their talents and could also be a good way for small boutiques, fashion designers or similar small businesses to post photos of their merchandise.

Google+ is a social networking and identity site with 500 million users. Google+ is similar in a lot of ways to other social networking sites, so you may think it is redundant. But consider that is owned by Google, one of the largest search engines in the world, so every time you post on Google+ it increases your SEO (search engine optimization). Google+ also includes an authorship tool that associates web-content directly with its owner/author.

LinkedIn is a business networking site with 240 million users. It offers opportunities to network and connect with business associates and potential business customers. It is best used to make and cultivate connections for your business.

Pinterest is a visual discovery site with 70 million users, the majority of whom are female. This site allows you to post or pin pictures of things you like or want to share and to connect with others through their pins and posts. Pinterest is a tool to enhance your other social networking by sharing pins and posts on other sites. Small businesses who want to share photos of their merchandise, recipes or items in a portfolio should consider adding Pinterest to the mix.

Twitter is a micro blogging site with 600 million users. Each post is limited to 140 characters and can now also include a graphic or photo. Twitter is used primarily to share real-time information about what is going on in your business. It is a tool for on-the-spot communication about events, sales and other promotions and can also be used to share blog posts and other important information about your business. Twitter takes an investment of time overall, but there are many tools available to help you schedule and plan posts in advance. We’ll talk about them in more detail in a future article in this series.

YouTube is a video marketing tool with 1 billion unique users each month. It is owned by Google so it also helps increase SEO. YouTube provides and opportunity for businesses to share how-to’s, training and other informational videos about your business that can be added to posts in other mediums to increase visibility. Creating videos doesn't have to be expensive and can be done on most laptops or tablets now with only an investment of time. They should be considered as an add-on to any small business marketing strategy.

That is each of the top 7 social media opportunities in a nutshell. There are of course many other ways for businesses to use each of these sites. Please comment below to share how you are using these or other sites or how you want to incorporate them into your small business marketing strategy.

Please take a moment to share our blog with your colleagues and friends who you think may benefit. The next article will dive further into each of these sites and talk about good posting strategies to enhance your social media effectiveness.

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Social Media Series for Small Business – An In-depth Look at LinkedIn for Your Small Business

This week we are back to our Social Media Series for Small Business with an in depth look at LinkedIn.  To date, we've talked about which Social Media sites are best for your business and what good posting strategies you should be using, and we've taken an in depth look at Facebook for small business.

Let’s take another look at the enhanced version of our Social Media for Small Business Infographic.

As we reviewed before, LinkedIn is a business networking site with about 240 million users. The best use we've seen for LinkedIn is a networking tool for those out of work or looking to move in a different direction with their career.

But LinkedIn can also be a great tool for small business.

First, start by creating a LinkedIn Company Page to raise brand awareness and teach potential customers about your products and services.

Use your posts to attract followers to your company page. Followers are key to driving word of mouth, recommendations and referrals. The more quality followers you have, the more you will increase your reach and engagement.

You can start increasing followers by asking your employees to add your company page to their personal profiles. By doing this they are automatically following your company page and can like and comment on posts about your company. Do the same from your personal page and you've just expanded your company page’s reach significantly.

Next, ask your customers and potential customers to follow your Company Page – include links to connect on your website and other social media as well as in your email communications.

Increase your exposure by posting regularly. Share company news, industry articles and start key discussions about topics important to your customers and potential customers. We recommend 2 - 4 times per week; others may recommend daily. Like every other social media site, the key to success is to have a strategy and be consistent.

LinkedIn may take a bit more effort to cultivate, but the opportunities to expand your network may well be worth the investment of your time.

How are you using LinkedIn to benefit your small business?

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Reflections on Nine Years as Small Business Entrepreneurs

It’s crazy to think that it has been nine years this month since we took the leap of faith from being full time employed workers to becoming small business entrepreneurs.

Our story isn't a sexy ‘Facebook is going to buy us one day’ tale, or even a ‘We have a brilliant idea let’s build it in our garage’ kind of legend. Instead it’s a culmination of a lot of life happening, a long-time dream to work together and a ‘We’re done with the status quo’ experiment.

And we've never looked back.

Entrepreneurship is truly an amazing thing. It offers flexibility, new ventures and opportunities that can be limited when working for others. There are challenges to be sure, but you learn to go with the flow and adapt as necessary. For example, when funding challenges plagued our core industry, we adapted by changing our name, rebranding and expanding our core target to include small business. We still do a lot of work with the workforce industry where we got our start, but small business has been a natural and welcomed extension.

The other wonderful thing is there hasn't been a ‘typical day at the office’ for us. We've worked with so many different customers – from a telecommunications technology company, to a custom drilling company, to a medical coding solopreneur, to a simulation and training start-up, to many workforce-related vendors, organizations and associations across the country. And our list of tasks goes well beyond marketing, graphic design and event planning where we started and now includes other things as diverse as contract management, human resources management, logistics, magazine editors, trade show planning, office design, virtual conferences and much more.

Technology has been our best friend and has allowed us to live in different places and have customers in other different places. And we've connected with so many people we would never have met otherwise.

Most of all we are thankful - to our families and fur babies who have supported us every step of the way, and to all of you who have honored us by becoming our customers and friends and those we have yet to meet.  

We are looking forward to celebrating many more anniversaries with you.

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Kim Luedke and Kerry Brooks are Co-owners of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.