by 1localbusiness.com | May 3, 2011 | Social Media
Whether your business sells chicken wings, auto parts, mani-pedis, or antique gently used household chotskies; if you are not taking some advantage of social media tools for the retail business, you are losing out on money-making opportunity.
Facebook is not just for fresh air deprived, technically adept teenagers thumbing inane status updates to their gaggle of virtual friends.
Twitter is not just a place to broadcast your seemingly useless online text messages to the masses; it’s a way to sell what your customer’s experience buying and using your products or services 140 characters at a time.
These most popular social communities are not only online networking opportunities for your retail business; they are media outlets, de facto social search engines, news sources, public forums, and virtual gossip columns all in one.
You want your business to be found when people search online for similar products or services throughout their extensive personal network of friends or business associates within these most popular social networks.
You want your business to have an identity within these online communities when people start talking about products you sell and services your business provides.
Of course you want your existing customers talking good about your business – but in order to maximize that digital word of mouth, you first need to hear it.
If your business is not there when we use these media outlets to search locally for products or services that you offer, or hear about such, or talk about…where will we go?
Your retail business is part of the local offline community already; ignoring the local and social digital neighborhood is counterproductive to increasing profits, retaining existing customers, and recruiting more new customers.
Have you noticed most television commercials are pushing us toward the company or product Facebook page as opposed to a website?
How about a Facebook page, You Tube channel, Pinterest page, and Twitter profile?
Be There or Be Square
All of us people that religiously shop and buy local are already here, chatting away, searching, reading…gossiping.
There is no reason to try and make all of us leave the environment and lure us to a website so we can learn more or buy their product(s).
Just bring the products to where the people congregate.
OK, we exaggerated. Only 1 in 13 people on the entire planet are Facebook users…with the 35+ demographic representing 30% of the entire userbase. (Source: digitalbuzzblog.com)
What’s all the buzz about?
How can you recruit more local fans of your business?
Do your loyal existing customers follow your newest products or services?
Are you linked in to the latest trends in your industry?
Is it a good thing when a customer yelps in your store?
Can your Carlsbad retail business go from square to foursquared?
With those kind of statistics, a simple course of dead reckoning would immediately benefit any San Diego retail business – yes, any. By just having a local retail identity within the most popular online social communities in the world, you are more open to opportunity than you were with zero representation.
So, go to Facebook right now and begin your local retail social media journey.
“Don’t delay!”
“And that’s not all you get!”
“Wait…there’s more!”
“Hurry up and buy!” (oops, its free!)
“Do you know what the five fingers said to the face?”
Consider this your kick in the rear. Get your social identity in gear and start increasing your local retail sales!
If you have any questions, just ask – we’ve already asked most of the stupid ones ourselves already.
by 1localbusiness.com | Apr 6, 2011 | Digital Marketing
When it comes to retail small business advertising and marketing, it’s almost like a virtual desert. You can do a search for something like, “carlsbad dry cleaners” and come up with exactly one actual local business website. Sure there are a few Yelp listings or Citysearch results to weed through, and several directories that require further clicking, but as far as an actual business location having a presence on the first page for the associated keyword search?
One. Out of how many oh-so-coveted spots on the top search engine results pages?
If those listing were parking spaces, would those business owners be able to find their car?
The search was done with Google, but none of the Google Places listings was an actual confirmed listing for a dry cleaning business in Carlsbad. That’s pretty much a desert. Sure, how many searches are there every day for dry cleaners in Carlsbad, probably not too many – relatively speaking. But is that any reason for a local business to not control and profit from having a highly visible online presence?
A Yahoo search for the same keywords did not result in much better. Again, we’re talking about better in terms of business owner input these listings appear to lack. None of the top five listings appeared to be confirmed and controlled by the actual business.
This blind approach just doesn’t work in the digital age; there are way too many avenues of local exposure out there to not be identifiable and accountable when it comes to online visibility for your retail business. The best part is with a little research and lots of time, you can get started right away without breaking the bank. You’d be surprised how much online visibility you can gain for your local retail business for free. As technology improves, what was once a complex task, is now commonplace – ask a travel agent or digital video editor.
The days of zero dollars in the ad budget, and relying on your customer word of mouth to give your business neighborhood prominence are not completely over, it’s just going to require some change in thinking and some adjustment in execution. For the average retail business owner in Carlsbad, digital marketing and social media are not at the top of the to-do list. Will we be saying the same thing 5 years from now, or will every local business have some type of beneficial online presence?
Will the virtual desert materialize into a local online retail oasis?
When you’re looking for a local service or product, where do you begin your search?
Most of us go right to the Internet, some right on our mobile phones. According to web info company, Alexa, the majority of us search Google when we go online to search. Some ask friends and family, and others go the old fashioned route of checking the phone book. Do you think the new Facebook Questions functionality will take off when we consider local shopping?
Whatever the answer is, the important point to remember is people are looking for your products or services every single day, in your immediate area. Doesn’t it make sense to have your business represented within the most popular modes of information gathering?
We think so.
Here we will present a super simple formula toward gaining online visibility for your Carlsbad retail business. Five easy steps you can take toward securing online visibility for your local retail business.
1. Develop a Website
If you haven’t taken the plunge already, develop a website for your retail business. That thing called the world wide webternet is not just a passing fad, actual commerce happens there. Get involved; build a website to showcase your products and services. $500 can get you started on the right foot, and $5000 can prepare your business to deal with whatever changes in virtual landscape we experience – or is it vice versa? These days it need not be expensive (maybe free if you’re tech savvy and DIY inclined), or expansive. Our feeble attention spans couldn’t handle it anyway, just give us the goods and let us buy them – online. That’s good enough. When in doubt, keep it simple.
2. Start a Blog
No, you don’t have to produce the next great American blog. The stay at home Moms out there have you beat anyway. Just get involved in your industry, and let the surrounding community know how much you’re involved. A blog is a great way to keep fresh and relevant content flowing to your website. Some may say blogs are a thing of the past (short attention spans again), but use your blog to keep us up to date on your products, services, industry news, community efforts, and even customer experiences. Keep it simple take two.
3. Build a Facebook Page for your Business
Easy-peasy, go to Facebook and give your local business some social street cred. You’re nowhere these days unless your dry cleaning business is on Facebook. Own a Laundromat? Facebook is a perfect place for you to connect with your patrons and offer them some free soap as a thank you for their continued loyalty. Not in the dry cleaning or laundry biz…then start reading between the lines!
4. Explore Other Online Options
Alliteration aside; Angieslist, Foursquare, MerchantCircle, HotFrog, Superpages, Citysearch, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Groupon…the list goes on, and it will keep fluctuating and changing. Get started with the research now if you haven’t already, click around on some of these sites and see how your business could benefit from a listing. Some are free, some appear to be, and some are not. There are probably another few hundred sites out there to list your business; these are only the most popular.
5. Get Local on the Search Tip
The first two screenshots on this blog post were representative of Google Places and Yahoo Local, respectively. In the interest of utmost fairness…Bing has their own too; yep you guessed it – Bing Local. For a definition on local search from Wikipedia, click here. Basically when we say local search, we mean online representation for your retail business in these highly visible localized search engine environments. And we’ll concentrate on those three – Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local. Go search for your business right now on each of those search engines, then just follow directions to confirm or verify your business listing. By doing so you are at least taking the first step in securing your online business presence with respect to these localized search engine results pages. Be careful, take your time, and do some sniffing around to make sure you don’t have any duplicate listings or any other associated virtual malady.
The aforementioned plan is a simple five step sample plan to gaining online visibility for your local retail business. Does it end there?
Nope…in fact, after proofreading this fifty times we’ve come to realize that perhaps an entire series should be dedicated to tactics as much as strategy when implementing a plan to begin building local online identity for your Carlsbad retail business.
We have a lot of work to do.
by 1localbusiness.com | Mar 15, 2011 | Social Media
Before we get into recruiting Fans on Facebook® and Followers on Twitter®, let’s first review some basic introductory goals in launching a social media campaign for your Carlsbad small business.
- Broadcast your business online visibility on the second most popular website in the world.* (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com)
- Connect and engage with existing customers to promote loyalty, and recruit new customers through grass-roots digital word of mouth.
- Give your North County retail small business a virtual identity; develop an online community built around your products, services, location, customers…etc.
- Establish a Twitter profile for your business to begin following other local businesses in the area. (suppliers, vendors, customers…etc.)
- Keep it simple – if anything seems to daunting, take a step back and think about your primary goals again. Visibility and communication.
Over the next couple of weeks we will look to check off each one of these easily attainable goals. We’re trying to keep this informative and structured toward the DIY beginner when it comes to digital marketing, social media, and local search techniques doable for the Carlsbad small business owner without devoting tons of time.
Getting started with a Facebook Business Page is the first step in achieving goal number one. It’s pretty easy but it’s also easy to take a few wrong steps and wind up wasting time. The most important thing to remember when starting a Facebook Business Page for your Carlsbad small business is this – PAGES are for businesses, and PROFILES are for people. Be absolutely sure you are creating a Business Page, and not a Personal Profile.
Create your Facebook Business Page Here.
Problem number two often arises when small businesses wrongly categorize themselves with the next step seen here:
Basically if your Carlsbad business is a retail physical location (or multiple locations) with a verifiable address (more on this later), you pick the ‘Local Business or Place’ option, choose the appropriate category, and complete the sign up process. Most retail small businesses will choose this option.
If your business is a structured company – and you don’t want to be identified with a specific neighborhood location, you would want to initiate your business page as a ‘Company, Organization, or Institution.’ Also be sure to choose the correct category with this option.
Follow through with the simple step by step instructions to give your Carlsbad business a Facebook presence. It would serve you well to review Personal Profile privacy settings and the functionality of your Business Page. Your personal facebook profile is allowing you to act as administrator of your business page, get familiar with the navigation. Upload some photos of your business, products or services to spruce up your profile. We’ll cover building a list of loyal ‘Likes’ on the next installment. Go forth and connect with friends and family on Facebook – as your Business Page.
We’re sure they’ll have plenty of suggestions!
P.S. Here is the Twitter link to sign-up your small business – https://twitter.com/signup, it’s not as confusing.
*Facebook is the second most popular site in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. Search engines refer approximately 6% of visits to it. This site has been online since 1997, and the time spent in a typical visit to Facebook is roughly 32 minutes, with 37 seconds spent on each pageview. Relative to the overall population of internet users, this site’s audience tends to be users who browse from school and home; they are also disproportionately women under the age of 45 who have postgraduate educations. – http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com
by 1localbusiness.com | Mar 8, 2011 | Social Media
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Your Business
This bears repeating…Before you take the plunge into social media for your small business, consider what it is you want to achieve.
There is no point spending time – lots of it, and money – not so much, interacting with existing and potential customers online if you don’t have a clear idea what it is you hope accomplish.
Take some time to really think about your products or services, what your customers experience in dealing with your business, and how you can continually improve the customer interaction and recruitment process.
For example, I know everyone one of you would answer – “I want more new customers.” Yes, thank you Captain Obvious! But think a little deeper.
For instance, how will Facebook improve your sales?
How can Twitter act as your own personal coupon network? Should you direct people to your blog through Facebook or vice versa?
Can you possibly align your business with other local businesses through social media?
Before tweeting your first Tweet, blogging your innermost thoughts, or blitzing the Facebook community with useless info (to them), take some time to construct what it is you are planning to achieve, and how these social media marketing tools will help your business get closer to that goal.
For the local Carlsbad retail business – whether it’s a juice bar, dry cleaners, or day spa – social media is a complementary marketing component. An inbound marketing tool in all likelihood, other things need to be in place to achieve maximum benefit from using social media in your small business.
Foundational Elements of Social Success
An effective team that is on board with your clearly defined goals, and a business owner that cares about what people say is a great foundation.
An up to date website, a consistently published blog, and robust but not overkill SEO – search engine optimization – also comprise essential underlying elements.
Email newsletters, customer surveys, and online video are some more ways most of us can use to build off that solid foundation. We can add mobile marketing to that growing list too, ensuring our web presence and social media identity is well formatted for seamless interaction through cell phones and tablets.
Do you know some local businesses that seem to get social media as a marketing tool – maybe some pizza places, or salons, or real estate agents?
Think about it, people are on their phones ALL the time. Take this hypothetical; I walk into your Encinitas restaurant and have a great meal. Before even receiving the check, I’m tagging your location on Foursquare and Facebook Places, and notifying all of my “friends” or virtual connections about the great meal I just had at your place. Maybe I’m even leaving a gleaming positive review of the great food, affordable prices, and dedicated staff…That is word of mouth, amplified for the digital age!
And it took me all of 2 minutes to blast out my incredible dining experience, this happens more than local business owners are aware.
Social media is another arrow in your digital marketing quiver. Use it, but use it wisely – don’t fall victim to starting an active presence just to have it soon relegated to useless.
Social media is another marketing tool that can help local businesses acquire new customers and improve existing customer loyalty.
But it’s a tool, and if we don’t know how to use it correctly we will not see the desired results.
Take a good hard look in the mirror now, so you don’t spend more time and an incredible amount of money later trying to fix something that was broken before you went social with your Carlsbad small business.
Social media will digitally amplify your business word of mouth – if that’s not a good thing, then you have more pressing concerns than Facebook or Twitter.
It will serve your efforts best, any marketing efforts, to take an objective look at your business.
What’s it like to walk in your door for the first time, what’s the first impression you communicate to potential customers?
How does your staff feel about your customers?
How do your customers feel about your products or services?
These are just a few questions, but the point is taking an objective look at your products or services, and making sure you develop a plan before taking your small business into the social media realm. Even if it’s just an informal type outline you compile at the next staff meeting, start the conversation and take some time to plan before taking that first step.
Mistake number one most small businesses make is jumping into social media with both feet, but without a plan.
That and setting up a personal Facebook profile rather than a business page. And then there’s having a dedicated person to handle the updating, linking, optimization, promotion, integration, posting, customer communications, account management, technical support…
Click here for the proper BUSINESS PAGE setup for Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?campaign_id=372931622610&placement=pghm&extra_1=0
You’ll want to complete that registration process for your business Facebook page, which is totally different from the PERSONAL PROFILE set up. Get started with that, then get a Twitter profile started here: https://twitter.com/signup.
Initiating the Facebook and Twitter profiles should be relatively easy, even though there are some pitfalls it’s pretty straightforward. Develop your social media plan, and decide how that is going to integrate with any existing marketing plan for your local retail business. Facebook and Twitter profiles are a great start, but that’s just the beginning.
Plan for after the beginning.
by 1localbusiness.com | Mar 1, 2011 | Local Search
No, we’re not getting all 2012 on you. The landscape in flux here is virtual, and if your offline retail business is not prepared to deal with the shift that is already underway, the consequences could prove fatal to your bottom line.
Even if you’re a local business owner that wants nothing to do with advertising or the Internet, you still need to be prepared to at least deal with this monumental change or your business will suffer.
Dealing with change is one thing, being prepared to capitalize on change is even better.
Social media and local search are the two biggest factors either contributing to, or detracting from your profits, now and in the future.
The internet landscape has changed and will continue to do so as technology, consumer habits, and the search engines continue to affect and define your small business virtual footprint.
What we’re talking about here is using social media and local search effectively, in order to increase the online exposure for your local business when people search online (or from their phone, iPad, Xoom…) for similar products or services.
We will continue to bring you the most up to date insights and info to help you navigate this confusing course of social media and local search for the small business owner.
This is just the latest news today – Facebook will surpass Yahoo in Display Ad revenue in 2011: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-pass-yahoo-in-display-ad-revenue-this-year-2011-3
Why should your small local North County San Diego business care about what the big corporations are doing?
Because the landscape is changing…and it is shifting to benefit the small business owner.
How you ask?
For that we had to choose a common starting point, this is it. We invite you to visit our blog regularly and subscribe to our feed, we will systematically present you with the tools and strategies necessary to capitalize on this online continental drift.
For now, we start with the awakening message. It is now time to hold the objectivity mirror to the face of your business, adapt to the change and prosper. Resist the change and your business will suffer, that is guaranteed. But we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.
We’ll get into the changes to the ‘Like’ functionality of Facebook and how that applies to your website (more breaking news for TODAY)…We’ll also examine how confirming your Google Places listing is only the beginning of your business’s local search exposure…And don’t forget about user-generated comments and reviews to amplify your local word of mouth…or social gaming (Foursquare), sharing, caring, and squaring…
Ok, we’ll stop. Consider this the beginning, and embrace the change underway. Your customers, accountant, co-workers, families, and even the Federal Government will thank you for it. Just in different ways, but that’s ok – your business will be better for it.
