Small business owners tend to be incredibly busy running their business and have little time to devote to coming up with fresh, new methods for promoting themselves. Luckily, with the recent rapid growth of social media sites there are now a number of new options to leverage social media to get quick and lasting promotional impact for a business.
1. Be an Expert Online - Small business owners know their industry forwards and backwards. Why not share that expertise in a company blog? In total it will take a few hours to setup and 1-2 hours a week to write a new blog post. A few blogging platforms: Wordpress, Blogger
Another great option for showing off your expertise tis to troll through Yahoo Answers or WikiAnswers and find people who have questions about issues related to your business. You'll build a reputation online and might even scoop up a few customers along the way.
2. Build Your Network Online - Look no further than LinkedIn on this one. LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and can help your company build a substantial online presence and open up tons of new channels for client acquisition.
3. Get Reviewed - If your customers like you then let them tell others about you. Yelp, Yahoo Local and Google Local are your best bets for sites where people freely review and search for businesses. Especially worth your time to engourage customers to review you if your business is locally focused.
4. Create New, Exciting Content - The social web has opened up all kinds of new ways of communicating to customers. A few favorites are videos on YouTube, pictures on Flickr and podcasts on Apple. These can take some serious thought to do well, but the payoff can be well worth it.
5. Find Better Employees - In addition to promoting your business online, the web has opened up tons of new ways to find talent. So as your business grows from following the tips above :) be sure to swing by Jobster, Craigslist, SimplyHired and even LinkedIn when its time to expand.
Good luck...and let me know if you have any success with these tips or have other ideas worth trying.
Todd Emaus is the Director of Online Marketing at Stone Interactive Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan
1. Be an Expert Online - Small business owners know their industry forwards and backwards. Why not share that expertise in a company blog? In total it will take a few hours to setup and 1-2 hours a week to write a new blog post. A few blogging platforms: Wordpress, Blogger
Another great option for showing off your expertise tis to troll through Yahoo Answers or WikiAnswers and find people who have questions about issues related to your business. You'll build a reputation online and might even scoop up a few customers along the way.
2. Build Your Network Online - Look no further than LinkedIn on this one. LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and can help your company build a substantial online presence and open up tons of new channels for client acquisition.
3. Get Reviewed - If your customers like you then let them tell others about you. Yelp, Yahoo Local and Google Local are your best bets for sites where people freely review and search for businesses. Especially worth your time to engourage customers to review you if your business is locally focused.
4. Create New, Exciting Content - The social web has opened up all kinds of new ways of communicating to customers. A few favorites are videos on YouTube, pictures on Flickr and podcasts on Apple. These can take some serious thought to do well, but the payoff can be well worth it.
5. Find Better Employees - In addition to promoting your business online, the web has opened up tons of new ways to find talent. So as your business grows from following the tips above :) be sure to swing by Jobster, Craigslist, SimplyHired and even LinkedIn when its time to expand.
Good luck...and let me know if you have any success with these tips or have other ideas worth trying.
Todd Emaus is the Director of Online Marketing at Stone Interactive Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan
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