Tag: LinkedIn

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Social Media for Small Business Marketing

social media for small business

 

You have to search really hard to find someone who relates social media to small business marketing and does so in an easy-to-understand way. However, Social Media Today has achieved this sharing by assembling a panel of experts who can guide you through the social media maze.

The YouTube video presented above gives great insights into how to use social media to advance the marketing of your small business. They effectively cover Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and relate these to small business marketing. The information is really well grounded and focused on “how to” information – it does not go into the technicalities of each of the social media sites.

The video covers the practicalities of social media marketing:

  • How to use social media to build your small business
  • What social media to use for small business marketing
  • How to avoid the risks associated with social media
  • How to connect with your customers (current and future) through social media
  • Ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Without this kind of guidnace, you can easily waste time, money and resources on social media and inhibit the success of your small business.

Core messages for small business marketing using social media

After watching the video and related Slideshare presentation, I distilled eight (8) key messages that relate to the use of social media for small business marketing:

  1. Social media are designed to build community, not to offer a platform for direct marketing (overt marketing can result in account deletion)
  2. Social media marketing is a form of indirect marketing (unless you use paid advertising on social media sites)
  3. Your goals should be to build connections and relationships with current and potential customers
  4. Unless you have a specific strategy when you visit social media sites, you will waste a lot of time for no productive outcome
  5. The essence of social media is conversation with others and sharing – about yourself, your small business, your interests and information relevant to your niche
  6. Effective marketing on social media requires content creation on your part – blogging, podcasts, e-books and videos
  7. It’s important to personalise your business and your staff – profiles and videos help greatly here (you have to present as a real person, with real interests and real staff)
  8. Profiles are critical – make sure they are relevant to your business, up-to-date and keyword rich (for SEO purposes).

Small business owners can use social media effectively if they follow some basic principles and develop a marketing strategy.  The potential of social media is enormous but the realization of this potential requires focus, targeting and discipline.

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10 Top Tips for Small Business Marketing on LinkedIn

 Here are 10 top  tips for building your LinkedIn presence together with tactics and strategies for marketing your small business.  LinkedIn is growing in status and size, so a presence on this site is becoming increasingly important for small business owners.

#1. Make the most of your LinkedIn Profile

Your profile is the core of your presence on LinkedIn – it is what people will visit to connect with you or to view what you have to offer.  LinkedIn understandably provides a comprehensive profile area – covering aspects such as current and past positions, education, specializations, experience and websites.  Make good use of the summary area which allows you to personalize the information by adding applications (”add sections”) that enrich your profile presentation.  The additional information area is where you add your websites, interest, groups/associations and awards.

The website descriptors are “my website”, “my blog” , etc.  – choose “other” instead and add a keyword rich title for your website(s).  Here are some other suggestions for your profile:

  • hyperlink wherever possible using anchor text
  • use keywords in description areas such as summary, specialties and experience
  • add an image for your profile (critical for this professional network)
  • create a personalized URL for your LinkedIn public profile (option provided), e.g. http://au.linkedin.com/in/ronpassfield
  • consciously determine your public profile settings to ensure you display the aspects you want to be visible to the public.

#2. Create your small business profile

LinkedIn, like Facebook, provides the opportunity to create a Company Page.  You can build your small business profile on this page and add your blog feed and other content.  As discussed in a previous post, a key aspect of your small business page should be your Company Status Updates.  This operates like Twitter but enables you to include a website image and description.

#3. Build your network

A key strategy for LinkedIn marketing is building your network.  Your connections are a reflection of who you are and your small business brand.  You can connect with customers who know you, business associates, employees/contractors, professional colleagues, potential joint venture partners and contacts from other social networks such as Squidoo, Facebook and Twitter.  You can really get to know your “friends” through their work experience, background and current business pursuits. 

You can grow your network by direct invitation to individuals, active participation in relevant LinkedIn groups or through people finding you via the LinkedIn search option (reinforces the importance of your keywords!).  LinkedIn, like Facebook, suggests connections based on your key interests, business associations and existing connections.  Your role is to consciously develop and shape your network.

#4. Create a group and participate

Another key LinkedIn marketing strategy, once you have developed your LinkedIn network, is to create a group.   You can build a group around your brand, particular product/services or professional affiliation.  However, you need to be active in your group to stimulate participation by others.  This could involve starting discussions, sharing news, creating sub-groups and posting relevant valuable information and resources.  When people join your group, this will be visible to their own network via the news feed.

#5. Use Slideshare to upload content such as presentations and videos

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. You can:

  • share presentations & documents with your LinkedIn network
  • upload portfolios, resume, conference talks, PDFs, marketing/sales presentations and display them on your LinkedIn profile
  • use a range of formats such as ppt, pps, pptx, odp, pdf, doc, docx, odt, Keynote, iWork pages
  • embed YouTube videos in presentations or add audio to make a webinar
  • upload your videos.

If you have a SlideShare.net account, you can import your existing presentations into LinkedIn.  If you don’t have one, you can signup from LinkedIn to share your presentations worldwide and get more views/traffic.  You can add the SlideShare presentations to either your profile or your home page.  Your SlideShare uploads show up on the LinkedIn pages of your connections (if they have added the SlideShare application).

You can use SlideShare on both Linkedin and Facebook.  You can synchronize these with SlideShare so you have a three-way leverage.  If you upload anything to any one of the networks — SlideShare, Facebook or LinkedIn – it shows up instantly on all three.

#6. Promote your LinkedIn profile

You can promote your LinkedIn profile on your website, blog or Squidoo lenses by adding the LinkedIn button or text link.  Alternatively, you can use one of the many social media icon sets to encourage readers to connect to you and your small business on LinkedIn.

#7. Use LinkedIn applications

LinkedIn has a range of applications that you can use to brighten up your profile.  These include Portfolio Display, Blog Link (sync with your blog posts from Blogger, etc), WordPress (sync your WordPress posts), Reading List by Amazon (share the books you are reading), Company Buzz (Twitter activity about your company), Polls (create a poll for market research) and Tweets (display your tweets and view and comment on your connections’ tweets).

#8. Provide and seek recommendations

Recommendations are central to the purpose of LinkedIn as they contribute to your credibility and can reinforce your brand in the eyes of potential consumers/customers.  They strengthen your personal profile and give you increased visibility.  An integral principle of social media marketing is reciprocation, so you should both give and seek recommendations to build your profile on LinkedIn.    Your recommendations will appear on your profile page and can often say as much about you as they do about the recipient – as they disclose what you see, and value, in other people.  As with any social networking site that you are trying to build a presence on, it is important to maintain your contribution with regular sharing.

#9. Ask questions and and respond to others

When you join a group it is very useful to ask, and respond to, questions and to be active in discussions.  In this way, you can display your expertise, engage others and connect with potential customers who share your interests and/or perspectives.

#10. Create LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn has ad placements that you can purchase, either by way of cost per click (CPC) or cost per impressions (CPI or CPM).  You can target your audience by:

  • Geography
  • Job function or seniority
  • Industry and company size
  • Gender and age

You should keep in mind the demographics of LinkedIn when using the site for paid advertising.  It pays to read the FAQ’s to learn about ad placement, advertising conditions and recommendations for writing ads.

LinkedIn is a valuable way to build your small business brand, make new connections, increase the online visibility of your small business and develop relationships with customers

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Company Status Updates on LinkedIn: A Boost for Small Business Marketing

Merit Solutions Australia

 

On the 6th October 2011, LinkedIn introduced Company Status Updates for Company Pages that were launched about a year ago.  LinkedIn Status Updates provide a new, powerful avenue for small business marketing online as LinkedIn is the largest online professional network in the world with over 120 Million members. 

This new status feature gives further access by small businesses to a professional network of people who are affluent, highly educated and influential in terms of purchasing decisions.  LinkedIn is ranked 12th by Alexa.com in terms of global traffic to the site and has a Google Page Rank of 9 (out of 10).

As illustrated in the image above, Company Status Updates provide the facility to attach a URL (web page address) which automatically displays a related image and “page description” drawn from the target website.   Readers can easily “Like” the update, comment on it or share it with their social networks (thus making the status entry viral).

Company Status Updates on LinkedIn enable small business owners to develop their brand by sharing news, videos, podcasts, articles, blog posts, available jobs and product launches.

LinkedIn is a rapidly growing network and this new feature will provide a real boost for marketing small businesses online.

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Social Media: Where Are Your Customers Conversing?

Yosemite Valley

 

With the growth of social media, small business owners face new challenges in terms of locating their clients/customers.  Added to this is the fact that recent estimates show that 80% of people who have access to the Internet start their search via the Web, not via printed media (e.g. Yellow Pages or newspapers).

One of the key learnings for me in small business marketing was to learn to focus on my customers/clients.  This meant getting to know their demographic, their interests and needs and what appeals emotionally to them.

Now that social media has expanded rapidly, the nature of “word-of- mouth” recommendation has changed drastically also.  Are your products being recommended by others on Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Squidoo or LinkedIn?

One of the keys to small business marketing online is getting to know where your customers are carrying on their conversations and joining them there.  For instance, since one of our client groups is professional public sector managers, we have found that they can be reached via LinkedIn.  The secret is to “get in front of the online conversation”.

One way to do this is to join social media sites and monitor what is going on in relation to your niche.  Another way is to use Google Alerts (via your Google account) to check on what is happening in relation to your niche and your business (name).   This will pick up who is saying “what” about you and your niche and where this is being said.   This is an aspect of reputation management as well as direct small business marketing online.

With your customers/clients spending so much time on social media, can you afford to ignore it?

Photo Source: http://www.pixabay.com

 

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http://www.squidooroo.com