So, you’ve got a ba-jillion followers on Twitter, you’ve reached the Facebook friend limit, and everyone likes you on Myspace, but are you seeing any real results from social media? Are you making the transition from friends and followers into dollars and cents for your business locally?Twitter – Your Broadcast Station
I think of Twitter in terms of a multimedia radio or TV station broadcasting all “you” all the time. The key to building your brand is to stay consistent. You have to give people a reason to follow you, stick with you, and remember you. Here are a few tips on getting the most out of it;
- Create a separate account from your main one just to follow and engage with people in your area. Or, use Tweetdeck to place local tweeters into specific groups in order to engage and follow conversations easily.
- Stick to a posting strategy much like an editorial calendar. It doesn’t have to be in-depth, but have an idea of what you’re going to put out there and when you’re going to do it. Warning: Use auto-tweet or canned tweets sparingly. Nothing’s worse than being bombarded with 15 tweets in a one hour period. This becomes too “commercial like” or spammy and will definitely turn followers off.
- Don’t forget to share links and information that’s relevant to your brand, industry, or profession. This makes you a resource in the eyes of others which creates value for people. I typically share articles that I find that I think people will find useful.
- Don’t be a robot! I can’t stand someone that only posts and posts without stopping to actually engage with his/her followers. That’s why you’re there, to network and connect with others. Don’t get so wrapped in your message that you forget to respond to your followers on the other end.
Another Great Post on the Subject: TwitterTown: How To Engage A Local Market
Facebook – Your Connection Outpost
Facebook is great for building relationships with readers of your blog, followers on Twitter, or any other social network. There are two ways to maximize Facebook for business, you’ve got groups and fan pages. A fan page is great to strengthen your brand, but, I think a group is awesome because you can bring local people with similar interests together online. Ideally, you would want the world to join your fan page, but your city to join your group. Make sense?
- For fan pages create unique content for the people who take the time out to fan and interact with your brand.
- Give special goodies to group members such as local event discounts, tickets, prizes, etc. Make the group a natural extension of your offline business activities. This will encourage growth online and off.
- Creating events and sponsoring them online and off positions you as a connector which is a powerful position to hold. Whatever you do, connect it back to you Fan page or Group.
Linkedin – Your Professional Corner
Linkedin helps in maintaining a professional presence and profile no matter what social network you join. It’s also a great way to meet professionals in any field. The goal is to make connections with professionals, build credibility throughout the network, and create sales opportunities offline.
- Search for groups in your city and join the ones that fit with your business or industry. Whenever you join a group make sure it’s one that you wouldn’t mind interacting with offline as well.
- Stay active in the groups you join by posting articles that are relevant to the group. You can find free articles to distribute from websites like articlesbase, but it’s better to write something exclusive for your group (who wants to share the glory anyway?).
- Start discussion threads, answer questions, or post questions to consistently show participation. People will want to interact with you offline once they see how active you are online. Also, when you first start off, you’ll want to show off that expert brain of yours so you can get recommendations, reviews, and make powerful connections.
Extras
- Google Local Search – Don’t miss out on local search traffic if you have a service or product to offer. Just the other day, my mom asked me to find a phone number for a gun range (I love her, but she scares me at times!), I typed in a few keywords, and got back 3 results that were less than 20 miles away from her house (With a map, phone number, and hours of operation, etc).
- Youtube – It’s not just good for watching videos of kids doing dumb stuff anymore. Now-a-days, you’ll find videos from people in your area. Create a couple targeted towards potential customers in your city and distribute them on your other networks such as your local Facebook group.
- Blogging – Where are you going to send all the people you engage with on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin? Why not a blog? It’ll strengthen your brand by deepening your messages, and can throw visitors into your sales funnel. One technique to grow it locally is to promote it locally. Put up fliers on public bulletin boards, speak at local organizations, conferences, and events, organize network meetings, etc.
As you can see, social media can be maximized to great lengths to build your brand locally. It really comes down to what you want to accomplish with the tools available and your willingness to get out of your comfort zone. What other social media tools can be used to build your brand locally? Are you using social networks to create real connections with people in your area? I would love to hear you thoughts on this in the comments below.
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About the Author
Rod
