In a previous post we looked at two key elements of online marketing for local businesses: search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing. In this post, we take a look at another key element: social media.

Recent research shows that the way people are spending their time online has turned far more social:

• 22% of consumer’s time online is now spent on social networks/social media
• 21% searching/using search engines to find information, and
• 19% using email

Fish Where Your Fish Are
Each of the big social media sites has its own user demographics. You should invest your marketing time in the sites that most closely match your own customer demographic.

Facebook
Facebook is simply huge. Many types of consumer are present on Facebook due to its sheer size: 900 million users. Facebook users are 43% men, 57% women. People 45 and older make up 46% of Facebook users. 57% have completed some college, and 24% have earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Facebook is hard to ignore for most local businesses as its sheer size guarantees a good number of your customers and potential customers are spending time on Facebook.

Twitter
Twitter has 127 million users with 59% of Twitter users being women. People 45 and older make up 33% of Twitter users. Twitter’s user demographics match quite well to the decision-makers in most households.

Pinterest
Pinterest is popular with women. Of Pinterest’s 21 million users 82% are women. Pinterest is much smaller than Facebook but is currently the fastest growing social media site of all. People 45 and older, make up 35% of Pinterest users. With this user base Pinterest holds out great potential for many local businesses targeting household budgets.

What do I need to do?

Facebook
Facebook provides “pages” for businesses. These pages are different to your personal Facebook account. We will talk about setting up and running your Facebook page in future posts. Your page is a place where you post content that your clients and potential clients may find interesting – articles from your blog are one great form of content to post. By posting quality content you can start engaging with your community, ultimately converting some of them into leads.

Twitter
Twitter is simple to set up. You simply set up your Twitter account and start “Tweeting”. “Tweets” are, famously, limited to 140 characters in length. The key element of most Tweets is a link back to some piece of content you want your followers to read – something like one of your blog posts. Once your followers are reading your content via your “Tweets” you have a chance to make them offers and convert them into leads.

Pinterest
Pinterest is like a pin board online. You share visual content that users can then share with each other. You can include links with the images you share on Pinterest and these links can drive your viewers back to your website/landing pages to convert them into leads.

We will be saying a lot more about the details of generating business through these social media channels in future blog posts. It’s pretty clear that social media is now a potential revenue generator for most local businesses. If you’re not active on social media yet, it’s probably time to take a closer look.