The other day you will remember I started this series with the post, “Blogging and social media should not be overlooked by small business.” What we touched on were five (5) key points as an early primer to why as a small business you should be using a blog and social media.
Here they are again as a refresher:
- Communicate with potential and current customers
- Promote your products and services
- Inform your market of news about your business
- Expand your market past the local level
- Compete with the “big guys”
All of what we talked about in the previous post can also be applied to what and how you use a blog and social media on the local level. Not that we need to worry so much about expanding past the local level when we are looking at our local market. However, we can certainly expand our local market using these tools. More on that below.
The local business mindset
Please don’t take that sub-heading as anything negative. It is truly a huge positive characteristic for a local small business. But, at the same time, don’t use this way of thinking as an excuse to put on blinders and not see the entire picture of what is going on around you in your local market.
Another mistake I have seen local small businesses make is waiting for the business to come in. In other words, throwing up a Yellow Page ad or a newspaper ad. And then sitting on their hands and praying to the gods someone will actually either call them or walk through the front door of their business.
For the very reason that blogging and social media “expands your market past the local level.” This is exactly why you can’t be a reactive marketer and hope someone stops in. Not only is the Internet expanding your market beyond your local level. This same Internet is expanding the market place for your customers and potential customers. No longer are your customers tied to you as a source of what they need. No longer are your customers tied to a source they can drive to and walk into. Your customers and potential customers can do all of their shopping online right now. And they can do this any time of the day or night too.
If you want to “compete with the ‘big guys’, you have to get out of the local business mindset. You have to think bigger and wider than you have ever done so before. You must take advantage of the tools available to you on the Internet if you expect to survive in this fast moving, ever changing, Internet influenced market place.
Consumer online local research growing
Don’t just take my ramblings on this as what your consumers are doing. TMP Directional Marketing did a research survey where they obtained these numbers.
The study confirmed that shoppers still use a variety of online and offline resources to find local business information.
According to the study, the first sources used are Search Engines (31%), Print Yellow Pages or White Pages (30%), Internet Yellow Pages Sites (19%) and Local Search Sites (11%).
The study also found:
Following online local searches, consumers most often contact a business over the telephone (39%), visit the business in-person (32%) or contact the business online (12%).
Your consumers are going online to find you and if you don’t have a presence there, you are going to miss out on their business. If the first source they are using are search engines, you have to be there to be found. And this is where you as a local business can use blogging and social media to be found.
What are your consumers looking for when they search online
Your consumers want you to:
- Communicate with them and give them an avenue to do the same with you
- They want to learn about your products and services
- Your consumers want to know what you are doing and they want to learn about your business
- They want you to tell them the good and the bad
- Your local consumers are looking for a reason to do business with you and not the “big guy”
- They want a place to go to get their questions answered and their problems solved
The problem and the solution
For most small businesses I talk to, the problem is the issue of not knowing how to do it. Not knowing where to even start the process of blogging or using social media. And not knowing the first thing about getting a blog up and going. Or even getting set up on the social media tools and using them.
We are in the process of putting the final touches on a new course we are working on. Its focus is on how to use blogging and social media to market and promote your business. Whether it is an online business, offline business, small business or local small business, it will be useful. The course is also for those with or without the brick and mortar business too. So if you are a home based business or a downtown business, you will benefit from what we will be offering soon.
Over the next couple of weeks we will be providing some highlights, private tips and hints and updates on when this new course will be available. Plus, we will be giving you a lot more details about the course and even give you the name. One element I will tell you is this. Not only will you get the information to put blogging and social media to work for you. You will have the opportunity to get a blog and your social media tools up and going on day one.
I am also excited about the fact there are others besides me who are going to be involved in this. And I will be announcing those names soon too. Each brings to the table a set of tools and their own expertise on how to use those tools too.
The only hard point I am going to make today is this. As a small business or for that matter, as a business of any kind, you have to seriously look at blogging and social media. You have to seriously look at it as a way to grow your market and expand your marketing influence.
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