Social Media Marketing Up For Small Business

Tight budgets but still wanting to do something, more small businesses are turning to Social Media for a greater part of their marketing. Does that surprise you? I have said before in a past blog that the new Sweat equity in many businesses has become Social Media (Marketing). I would think that if you are reading this blog you are already most likely engaged in some sort of Social Media / Social Media Marketing.

Despite budget cuts, small businesses are doing what they can to make things happen. With the resiliency of being a Small Businesses owner, we are all adopting and implementing the free side (except for time to learn and implement) of online marketing tools that social media marketing affords us.


During the 2nd quarter for the very first time since the Merchant Confidence Index was started, Social Media was listing as the top channel to be used by businesses with over 50% of all businesses now using some form of Social Media Marketing. The next closest channel coming in at number 2 was e-mail marketing which was top marketing tool for small business in the 1st quarter.


Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Nings, MerchantCircle combining in with local based sites like Yelp and Foursquare and video sharing sites like YouTube are finding ways into the Small Business marketing plan.


If you have the time and the tenacity to be a player in Social Media it can pay off, but it does take time. . . lots of time.


Larson Notes & Satire: Each week I find new ways to make Social Media work. I find ways to make it work for me and a small handful of select companies that want me to do it for them. It has helped to make my web site 1st page google and yahoo in the two keyword string natural searches of “telesales for printers” and telemarketing for printers”. I figure if I can do it for myself, I can do the same kind of thing and get the same kind of results for other small businesses, and I do. I like nothing more that going after the “Big Dogs” and getting them to put their tails between their legs when one of my small business client’s web sites goes up higher than theirs on a key word search.


It’s sort of like when a new client hires me on to do telemarketing for them in a new city. I’m sitting there rubbing my hands together in joy, wanting to blow the competition’s drawers off for not hiring me first when they had the chance. Those are the kinds of goals that make my work fun and enjoyable. It really does make work a heck of a lot more fun!


But back to Social Media, there are all kinds of ways to be getting Social Media to work, aside from pushing up your web site in the rankings. There is the posting on forums and other peoples blogs (that’s right you don’t have to write the blog yourself to get exposure just post a good related comment) to attract followers who can then become a loyal customer. It takes time and it takes an approach where you have to keep a long term one track mind in your marketing attack, but it does work. People seem to like people who don’t go changing their minds about things ideas and topics every other month. So consistency is a key here.


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.