Want to See How Other Small Businesses are Using Social Media?

Want to See How Other Small Businesses are Using Social Media?

It wasn't that long ago that small business deemed social media nothing more than a time-sucking distraction; something to keep your employees from whiling away their days upon. Not any longer. Now you'd give your brother's 401k for someone social media savvy enough to take your business to the next level.
The truth is, you probably have employees spending their work time on social media. What you may not have is a plan for how to best utilize their talents.

What are small businesses doing with social media

Now some 74.5 percent of small businesses report using social media to promote their companies, and they're throwing money into it as well, as 21.4 percent count this as their highest media spend of all. Clearly, social media has gone from a waste of time to a viable marketing channel.
55 percent of these companies have a Facebook business page, and another 20 percent are using Facebook Ads to promote posts on that page.
There are other players, naturally, and some of these include LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. You can also have Google+ in this group, even as they transform yet again into what's is known as Google My Business, an all-encompassing amalgam of Google+, Places, Local and Maps. (and probably something else by now!)

What can you do to get your business working with social media?

First of all dive right in! Make a Facebook Page, get accounts at the social sites that make sense for you, and above all, don't spread yourself too thin. You'll want to be posting content to these sites, not merely quotes from dead guys and pictures of cute kittens.
Start with only a few social properties, like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and possibly Twitter. If you have a lot of products that you can showcase, consider adding Pinterest and Instagram. The key here though is to make sure you don't take on more than you can reasonably manage.
Make videos, and always endeavor to point people to where you want them to go, preferably your blog or site. Engage with anyone who wants to strike up a conversation, and be generous with your comments and knowledge. You'll find that before long you'll have more of a following than you expected!