Proper Use of Social Media for Local Marketing

Everyone knows that marketing with social media is important. This holds true whether you have a global company or a local business that is marketing in nearby areas. In fact, it may be even more important for a smaller business owner to utilize various social media sites to get their information and names out there. Here’s why:

Engaged Contact List

Gaining fans on social media is not easy and the people who follow you want to be engaged. If you can manage to make your brand fun or interesting, more people are likely to pay attention to what you post, tweet, or snap. But here’s the best part – once you have fans on social media, you also have a customer base that will pay attention to your advertisements at no cost.

Having an excellent social media strategy and a social audience will lead to referral traffic, conversions, and more money in your pocket.

Search Engine Optimization

The major search engines have confirmed again and again that social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram influence a company’s SEO. Having active social profiles will push your name up on Google and give you more opportunity for traffic.

If social media isn’t part of your marketing plan, you’re leaving traffic and money on the table. So not only must you have profiles, but you must be active and give people what they want on these profiles.

Management of Reputation

If you own a social media page with your company name on it, nobody else can do so. If you don’t grab up that opportunity, chances are someone else well. This makes it harder to prove you are who you say you are. It also makes it difficult to prove someone posting in your name isn’t connected to the company. Even if you don’t make updates on some social sites, having the account is something you should not ignore.

Using Social Sites as Part of Your Social Media Strategy

First off, there are some social media sites that are more important than others. Even if you don’t want to jump into every site, ensure you have profiles or pages available on these very important pages:

Facebook

Facebook is the most important account you can have, because nearly everyone has a personal account there. As a business, what you want is to start a Facebook Page. These represent companies, organizations, and public figures. In addition, Facebook allows you to advertise on their website. They even go so far as allowing you to ensure your advertisements get to those who matter – the people in your local area who can utilize your company.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you can create a company page, which gives tons of information about your business. You can list the site, type, industry, employees, and more. You can also add updates and post articles in order to gain exposure.

Google+ Business

A business page on Google+ is different from a personal profile, just as pages are different than profiles on Facebook. Google+ doesn’t yet have the ability to advertise, but they do offer page listings in Google search results, so you should have a page set up.

Google+ Local

The Google+ Local account is often ignored, but it should not be. It’s probably one of the most important places to have a presence. This is because they display reviews from Zagat, a competitor to Yelp and similar sites. Google is integrating these with Google+ Business pages, which will make the two even more important.

Twitter

Twitter is another social media site that has the base of people that you want finding your page and site. You should absolutely make an account on Twitter. If you don’t have the time to keep it updated, at least ensure you fill out the bio with your location and website, which can lead people to you.

Foursquare

This social media site offers recommendations to users based on places nearby that are similar to what they and friends are already visiting. As such, this is a gold mine for getting your name out in the local area and converting visitors. People can find out who you are and what you do, along with things like hours, and even check out reviews.

Additional Possibilities

Snapchat

Snapchat has some great options for local SEO, including geofilters. These allow you to create a filter and make it available to a geographic area for a certain amount of time. When people use these filters, it’s simple advertisement and can spark conversation about your brand and what you bring to the table.

Quora

Quora is a community question forum that can be used to elevate a local brand. The site is a place where people ask questions. You can visit it and answer questions in your industry. You simply make a profile, start answering questions, and you can tack on a link to a blog or website where people can learn more about your company.

Where to go from Here

It can be difficult to find out what opportunities work best for local brands looking to build SEO in their area. It’s not impossible though. It’s a great idea to start small, with one or two sites, and keep up a presence. By trial and error, you’ll encounter things that work and things that don’t work.

That said, there are new social media sites that pop up all the time and many don’t last long. One way to have a constant presence is by being one of the first local companies in your industry to adopt a new service. This can give you a whole new group of people to market toward who you may not find elsewhere.

Social media is not just for the big guys, it’s for everyone. Local marketing teams can make a lot of headway using the sites that are popular. Be active and try to fill a need and you can find conversion paths from all sort of services.