Social Media - One of 5 Essential Small Business Local Marketing Tools

With so much attention being given to social media marketing, it’s easy to get the impression that it’s the end-all-and-be-all  for small business marketing needs. While it holds a significant place in most marketing mixes, it’s not the only tool small businesses should take advantage of.
Local businesses especially need to have a mix of tools to get found, and these days the emphasis is to be found online.  To do this successfully, businesses need to incorporate the following 5 tools into their marketing campaigns.

Website with blogging functionality

Also called a blogsite, it should act as the home base of your online presence. You should host this site yourself so it’s totally under your control, rather than setting your site up on someone else’s platform for free.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

You want your website to be found in the search engines by people searching online for local businesses. The algorithms affecting SEO are constantly changing, which can be challenging to continually maintain, but it boils down to 2 major SEO elements:
- onsite SEO – which deals with factors on your website itself, like placing keywords appropriately in your domain name, blogpost titles, tags, etc.
- offsite SEO – which deals with factors external to your site, namely the number and quality of links that point to your site from other online sources (also called backlinks)

Social Media presence

Sometimes referred to as Web 2.0 properties, they are platforms that are inherently, well,  ”social.”  Content is driven by users, is more conversational, and is considered a high tech “word of mouth” system. There are literally hundreds of social media platforms and support software. Most consider the “big 4″ to be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.  Each has its own strengths, weaknesses, and demographics.  Some are geared for talking, others for listening; some for providing valuable content, others for networking, engaging and entertaining.  Social media marketing is definitely NOT one-size-fits-all and must be customized for your business to capitalize on it.

email/autoresponder/messaging systems

Google “email” and you’ll find plenty of articles that say email is dead, but report after report continue to prove that statement wrong. While the way in which people retrieve their email has changed, it’s still a tried-and-true marketing communication form.  Just watch retailers use a powerful autoresponder  email and/or text-messaging system with great success during peak holiday seasons. It’s been shown that people retrieve text messages much quicker and more frequently than emails, although that may be changing because of a significant rise in mobile device use.

Local mobile marketing

With the explosion of mobile devices, you need to ensure the ability of mobile device users (Blackberry, iPhone, Droid, iPad, etc. users) to find you on the go.  Even though you may have an internet presence, it doesn’t mean it is mobile-friendly.  Here are some considerations about mobile marketing:
- viewability – Some websites will convert well for viewing on mobile devices, others won’t and will require some modification.
- e-commerce -  For businesses offering e-commerce functionality,  they need to consider how best to accomplish this with mobile device systems. They may desire a different focus and options than desktop-based e-commerce systems.
- location-based options – Mobile device use has led to the creation of various location-based applications. These include the integration of social media to allow such enhancements as check-ins, special/exclusive deal offerings for mobile users, search for nearest brick-and-mortar businesses, etc.


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