30 VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED USING
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS
IMAGE BY JN IS NOT HERE
In this post Mark Hayward shares some great tips on social media for small
business
INTRODUCTION
Do you own a small business?
 How long have you been using social media as
a marketing tool?
 What have you learned?

THE BEGINING
In a little over a months time I will have owned
my business for just about three years.
 When I began using social media some thirty
six months ago, I had no real marketing
background experience, and I certainly had
never written a blog post, interacted in a forum,
or sent a Tweet.

My social media evolution began with a simple
foray into blogging as a way to try and rank well
for some keywords related to my business.
 From there I expanded to niche forums, review
sites, FLICKR, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
 Man! Just trying to keep up can be intimidating
and overwhelming.

However, my number one goal has always been to
create a distributed social media footprint with all
of my online marketing activities pointing back
towards my small business website.
 After almost three years of working hard, learning
continuously, making lots of mistakes, and
monitoring successes, below are thirty valuable
social media marketing lessons that I have learned
through my experience. I hope they help you.

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Location is dead. We have now fully entered
into the Interaction Economy
It does not pay to engage in ‘pissing contests’
on business review sites or in forums
When used properly, a small video camera like
a Flip and a standard digital camera (or just
an iPhone), can be like having your own
marketing department


Instead of trying to be everywhere in the social
media space, determine what online activities
work best for your business and focus your
attention there
Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is important
but it needs to be combined with a well
distributed plan for Search Engine Visibility
(SEV)
Conceptualizing and then defining your social
media goals can help to keep you on track
 Social networking sites can be a tremendous
time suck. Use a site like Egg Timer to help limit
the time you spend interacting online
 Get to know the online influencers in your small
business niche, as well as, the social media
pros

There is gold to be mined with Twitter Search if
you are willing to use it to listen, engage, and
provide value
 Uploading well titled and tagged videos to
YouTube and photos to FLICKR can drastically
improve your Search Engine Visibility
 Consistent small business blogging pays the
greatest returns

Technology changes daily. Read often
 You should not fear customer review social
sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Rather, you
should embrace them
 Helping people online when they least expect it
can bring you great rewards
 Even on your worst day, you have to remember
that every interaction counts

Spamming and jamming your business down
the throats of potential customers only drives
business away
 Not everyone is going to like you, so be
prepared to get flamed and read negative
reviews
 Turn negative reviews into a positive by using
them to help better define who your ideal
customer is

Your backstory matters and weaving it into your
online business persona is important
 Social media is a lot like exercise. Doing a little
bit consistently everyday will produce better
results than one eight hour marathon session
per month
 The people who criticize you the most for using
social media to promote your small business
are the one’s who are most afraid of embracing
change

One of the easiest ways for small business
owners to measure social media ROI is to ask
every customer how they heard about your
business
 When starting your social media marketing
efforts for your small business you will get
frustrated. Try to keep a long term outlook like
six months to a year

Don’t discount the power of niche forums that
are related to your small business
 Use Google Alerts to see who’s talking
specifically about your business and anything
related to your business
 If you are using social media as a customer
service tool, when something goes wrong (and
it always does!), being sincere, humble, and
apologetic will be greatly appreciated by your
future potential customers

Utilizing free email lists like Help A Reporter Out
(HARO) can help you find valuable public relations
and news opportunities for your business
 Social media in the short term does not work. You
must be in it for the long term and be persistent,
consistent, and committed
 Anyone who owns a small business can ‘do’ social
media, but NOT everyone ‘does’ it. (And that is
your true competitive advantage.)
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If you have a spare hour or two everyday to
aimlessly surf the net, or sit and watch T.V.,
then you have more than enough time to
commit to using social media for your small
business
How long have you been using social media for your small
business? What have you found works best?
MARK HAYWARD HATES THE SNOW AND COLD! LUCKILY, HE OWNS A SMALL
BUSINESS IN THE CARIBBEAN. MARK IS PASSIONATE ABOUT HELPING OTHER
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS AVOID THE ONLINE MISTAKES HE HAS MADE. YOU CAN
FOLLOW MARK ON TWITTER @MARK_HAYWARD AND YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO
HIS RSS FEED FOR WEEKLY SMALL BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TIPS.