Embracing social media is key for small businesses hoping to strengthen their customer relationships in an engaging way. But with so many social media platforms across the web, it’s can be overwhelming to maintain a presence on each. A better alternative is to be active on those sites that can help your business most, but how do you know which one is best for your business? We break it down for you here.

Facebook

codemastersnake

On Facebook you create a business page where you can post updates, photo, video, and connect with “fans,” potential customers, and others in your industry.

Audience: Facebook has over 800 million active users, closely split between women (58%) and men (42%). Contrary to popular belief that social media is only popular with younger generations, 54% of users are actually aged 35-54, with 67% making $25,000-$75,000.

Best For:

Google+

ivanpw

G+ works like Facebook in that you can interact more dynamically with your social network. But G+ allows you to compartmentalize your social networks, meaning you can tailor certain messages to certain contacts.

Audience: G+ is still relatively new, however, the majority of early adopters are male (63%) compared to female (37%). The site user audience also skews younger than other social networks with the majority of users being between age 18-34.

Best For:

• Businesses with consumers who are younger/early adopters.
• Creating more targeted social interactions via “groups,” allowing you to send special discounts just to repeat customers, for example.

Pinterest

ohmeaghan

Pinterest is a virtual pin board that allows users to “pin” photos/links they like, then organize them into boards.  Other users can like, comment, and re-pin these links.

Audience: Pinterest’s popularity has exploded. The site’s estimated to have received nearly 11 million visits during one week in December (almost 40 times the number of visits six months earlier). It is definitely female-dominated (83%), and 70% of users make $25,000-$75,000.

Best For:

• Gaining exposure for products, particularly creative or design-specific products (every post requires a photo).
• Businesses with visual goods that also want to engage with their consumers and industry.

Tumblr

joshwept

Tumblr is a simplified blog that lets you post many things, including text, photos, links, music, videos, with the added benefit of being able to post from your phone, browser, email, etc.

Audience: Tumblr is a newer social media platform that is more popular with younger demographics: 72% of users are under age 44, with more women (62%) than men (38%) using it.

Best For:

• Tech-savvy businesses that want to use the highly customizable interface as an extension of their brand (some moderate HTML tinkering is required).
• Those on-the-go — you can update from mobile devices and set posts to publish later.
• Businesses with content that is highly visual — half of all posts are photos.

Twitter

Rosaura Ochoa

Twitter is a social media site that allows you to post 140-character messages to interact with your networks.

Audience: The majority of Twitter users are female (62%), though males (38%) also contribute; 71% of users are ages 25- 54; 63% of users make $25,000-$75,000.

Best For:

• Companies that don’t have a lot of time but want to stay connected.
• Finding out who’s talking about your company, allowing you to engage directly to do things like promote new products, provide customer service, conduct market research by asking questions, get feedback, etc.

YouTube

codenamecueball

This video-sharing website allows users to upload their own video clips, including tutorials and video blogs.

Audience: YouTube attracts men and women almost equally, but notably one of the largest segments of users are those age 45-54 (30%), followed by 35-44 (22%), and 25-34 (18%).

Best For:

• Businesses that provide services or products that are conducive to a visual medium, such as tutorials, demonstrations, etc.
• Brands that can properly produce (and benefit from) quality videos.

Which social media platforms do you use for your small business? Tell us about it in the comments.

Luckily, there are solutions out there to help your business utilize social marketing in a productive and efficient way.

Enter Demandforce, the newest presence in the Flowtown world. You may have read about the recent acquisition of Flowtown by Demandforce and wondered what changes are in store for this community. Really, the only changes you may see are a few more references to SMB solutions alongside the same great content and infographics you are used to finding here. But, we still thought it would be nice to formally introduce Demandforce and what they can mean to our Flowtown readers.

The 411

We know that for any small business, increasing revenue, engaging and retaining customers, and being able to see a return on investment is of the utmost importance. If you are looking to accomplish any of these goals, then here is what Demandforce can do for you:

Easily Manage Your Social Marketing Efforts

With the right tools, you can monitor and track your all your marketing efforts in an efficient way. Demandforce users can create a centralized place for their customers to request appointments, write reviews, and connect with them 24/7; integrate with all their social media platforms; maintain a consistent Web presence; and more. By utilizing these tools, happy customers are encouraged to come back more often, spend more on services, and refer more business.

Retain, Retain, Retain

One of the most overlooked and undervalued assets is your own recurring customer base — you got them, now keep them! From reading this blog, you know there are many avenues to reach out to your customers, but initiating successful interactions using all the various resources can be time consuming without satisfactory ROI.

To give businesses that extra edge (and ROI), Demandforce’s system helps facilitate communication with existing customers and helps attract new ones by integrating with various management systems. This automatically targets clients who need a little extra attention, sends appointment reminders, creates campaigns, reactivates lost customers, and prompts the biggest fans to refer new clients.

Control Your Online Reputation

As user review sites gain popularity — and the power to make or break your business in the social sphere — your business’s online reputation has become an asset you must control and protect. Using technology to help you do this, Demandforce automates review collection to help you manage and respond to reviews and share those reviews on third-party web services, including search engines, websites, and indexes, all of which increase your online visibility to help potential customers find you.

Keep Your Online Info Updated

Most consumers use the Web to find the businesses and services they need; therefore, your business should be represented on as many sites as possible. Unfortunately, these sites are constantly changing, which makes keeping your info updated a major challenge. Demandforce works with the biggest players online, such as Google Places, Citysearch, and 90+ other sites, to ensure business information is presented consistently and accurately in Internet Yellow Pages databases, indexes, and directories.

Build Your Brand

Small business marketing can and should be about building a brand over time. In addition to effectively implementing social marketing efforts that mobilize community and increase revenue, Demandforce offers the guidance and expertise to help small businesses grow into a brand by advising on best practices, helping tell their story, and building lasting customer relationships.

Demandforce is all about helping businesses help themselves and hopefully, at the very least, our readers can benefit from their expertise. Check out Demandforce’s website for more info or their blog for more SMB solutions-type posts, and let us know what you think.

Running a small business takes a lot of time and energy. Between the many tasks and crises that constantly surface and the stress of maintaining everyday operations, a business can be stretched thin. And though marketing is one of the essential ingredients to keep a small business successfully running, many owners find it difficult or overwhelming to stay on top of. Luckily, in the digital age, a plethora of technologies exist to help you market smarter, not harder. Automating the following three areas can save you time and energy while ensuring you’re covering your marketing bases.

Automate Your Content Creation

markhillary

Content is king when it comes to helping your web presence. Fresh content helps elevate your search rankings, making it easier for Internet users to find you; and providing your visitors new and interesting things to check out encourages them to return to your site — and can establish you and your business as an industry thought-leader. But if you find you don’t have time to cobble together a post on breaking industry news or publish a steady stream of content, automating it may help. Content creation tool Curata gathers relevant articles and links from the Internet and posts the content to your company’s website and social media accounts — problem solved!

Automate Customer Relationship Management

Stephen Cummings

Service-based small businesses thrive on customer engagement. But taking the time to extend personal communications or track ongoing interactions takes both manpower and brainpower that may not be in high supply. Luckily, you can automate all your customer communication using Demandforce’s D3 service, which lets you manage all this through automatic appointment scheduling, reminders, customized email campaigns, and more. Plus, you can easily track results to see what’s working for you. This leaves you free to focus on the customer in front of you, knowing the others are well taken care of.

Automate Social Media Updates

InstantDane

Maintaining your social media presence is necessary, but with so many different platforms, managing each account can be exhaustive. Helpful service Ping lets you update all your social networks through one portal. You can even email or text updates that you want to share for ultimate convenience. Of course, you also want to make sure your social media updates are making the most impact. Timely.is lets you schedule Twitter posts in advance and publishes them during the times when users are most active to give you maximum exposure, killing two birds with one stone.

Ask Yourself What You Should Automate

Automating any of the tasks above, as well as other business operations, can be advantageous. However, before you decide to automate any of your marketing, do your research and ask yourself what will benefit you and your business most.

Have you automated any of your marketing? Tell us how it worked for you in the comments below.

Facebook’s Timeline ushers in a new era of social media, celebrating the individual and giving you more power over your online presence. Is this the Facebook of the future?

Facebook’s newest feature, Timeline, has garnered much attention since it was rolled out last month. Many love the new profile makeover, which makes all your content searchable in a highly visual format, while others consider the soon-to-be-mandatory change a move in the wrong direction. But, most significantly, this next evolution of Facebook has sparked a new debate about what social media can do and what it should be.

When unveiling Timeline at the f8 conference in September 2011, Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the format is a new way to truly “express who you are.” He compared the old profile to a brief conversation, capturing snippets of your current life, but described Timeline as an hours-long, in-depth conversation about who you are and what your life is about, all creatively curated by you. It is a more intuitive, visual profile, allowing you to highlight the content you want to share most.

But this new makeover is more than aesthetic. Timeline really addresses the foundation of all social media: How much do you really want to share, and how?

As Zuckerberg describes it, Timeline is “the heart of Facebook experience, completely re-thought from the ground up.” Facebook has always maintained that users want to share more, but users have often pointed out they want more control over what they share. Timeline may well be an attempt to move into a new era, as it is editable and gives you more power to shape your online presence.

Zuckerberg believes our online social life should and will continue to more accurately reflect our real lives, and Timeline is the next major shift toward that dynamic. By allowing you to visualize and record your entire life (even life before Facebook), you will be able to maintain genuine personal connections within your social network, or so Zuckerberg hopes.

One social trend Timeline particularly highlights is the celebration of the individual. Your profile is now less about sharing current events and news and more about creating your own personal space. This careful distinction is made clear by the fact that businesses cannot adopt the Timeline format. Thus it seems Facebook is clearly drawing lines between individual interaction and business.

What effects this will have on the commercial world is unknown, but it will be interesting to see if other social platforms move in that direction as well.

Only time will tell if Timeline’s goals will succeed and truly redefine our social media relationships. One thing is for sure, however: All profiles will eventually be converted to Timeline, making it an inescapable feature for all Facebook users.

What are your thoughts on evolving social media? Tell us in the comments below.

Marketing is one aspect of your small business that you can control, even in a down economy, and is one of the most important foundations of any successful business. In fact, 73% of small business owners surveyed by Intuit said marketing and/or advertising was the most important element that would contribute to their business growth in 2012. Adopt these small business marketing New Year’s resolutions to make 2012 a successful year.

1) Give Your Website a Makeover

(Zahlm)

The online world is constantly evolving, and it’s up to you to make sure your business keeps up with the times. Your website is often a customer’s first impression of you, so make sure it’s well-maintained. Is your company info updated? Is your site easy to navigate? Update content, including blogs, photos, or recent events recaps, to beef up your site. And make sure it’s search engine optimized, and that you’re always following best practices (for example, don’t use Flash for design, which prevents customers from copy/pasting info). Check out the Small Business Association’s tips for keeping your website updated and relevant.

2) Try New Things

(Vectorportal)

One advantage of being a smaller operation is that you can perform your own market research fairly easily and efficiently. Use the New Year to mix it up and experiment with your marketing efforts. If you’re on Facebook but intimidated by Twitter, create an account, familiarize yourself with the site, and read up on how it can benefit you. If you send an annual New Year discount to your newsletter subscribers, create two versions using different text/visual representation and track which version received a better response. Utilize tools like Google Analytics, which help you monitor your online marketing efforts to gauge the success of all your campaigns. It doesn’t require a lot to step outside your marketing comfort zone, and the results will likely be invaluable.

3) Meet New People

(buddawiggi)

Social media is all the rage, and you should be active on those platforms, but work on making more real-life connections. Cultivate a relationship with a local reporter to get press for your business, visit industry conferences, network with industry thought-leaders (even better if you can start to position yourself as one), read up on industry blogs, and reach out to your extended network. Not only will this help strengthen personal connections that are vital to small businesses, you can learn much from colleagues and mentors who can help you in the future.

4) Make Yourself Mobile

(James Cridland)

Just as your website should be updated and refreshed, it should also be mobile-compatible. As more and more commerce and Web activity happens on mobile phones, your business must be on the forefront. Keep this growing trend in mind as you devise campaigns for the coming year and make sure emails and special offers are viewable on mobile devices. You should also explore services like AppStack, which can help connect you to your customers via mobile apps.

5) Lose Pay-Per-Click Weight

(Edgeworks Limited)

Many small business owners aren’t necessarily ad experts, but too many tend to be, well, ad idiots. Small businesses usually rely on online searches to lure customers, but using the “spray and pray” method in pay-per-click ads doesn’t get you what you need. To get quality customers and real ROI, you need specific, targeted ads. Re-evaluate your ad spending, and look for ways to trim. As small business and educational consultant Anthony Green points out, simple techniques, such as adding negative keywords that prevent your add from showing up in undesirable searches, will save you money and help you hone your campaigns.

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions for your small business? Tell us about them in the comments below.

To survive in the business world, you must have an online presence. And for small businesses that thrive on local business, ranking highly in search engines is even more vital to your success.

According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, 63 percent of consumers and small business owners turn to the Internet first for information about local companies. However, 39 percent report frequently not being able to locate a particular known business. This means implementing successful search engine optimization (beyond just a few keywords) to make your company visible to potential customers should be a top priority. The good news: Just a few tweaks can increase your presence and send online customers your way. Follow these 10 tips to improve your local SEO.

1. Get Links From Local Sources

Sites that link to you help bolster your presence in search rankings, and sites associated with your location that link to you will help connect your business in search engine algorithms. Case Ernsting of Search Engine Journal recommends submitting your business info to local directories, community databases, and even your hometown’s Wikipedia page to get encourage links to your site.

2. Work Under One Domain Name

Sure you want to be recognized and use different online outlets for different thing, but having multiple websites for different services or aspects of your business can confuse the consumer—and reduce your overall search engine pull, says the Small Business Administration. It’s wiser to keep all online activity under one name.

3. Encourage Reviews

Though many small business owners shy away from reviews for fear of a bad one, search engines factor online reviews into your ranking. Think of it this way: The more people are talking about you, the more popular you are. Ask friends and customers to review you on sites like Yelp.

4. Add Content to Your Site

Whether it’s a blog, industry news, announcements, or event recaps, adding new content your site is imperative. This creates new pages that can be optimized with new keywords, expanding your company’s reach in the eyes of search engines. You can then encourage links to that content from other sites.

5. Include Content Links on Your Social Media Sites

Post links to your site on social sites like Facebook and Twitter. As Search Engine Land notes, search engines are starting to crawl and track these links back to your site.

6. Title All Web Pages

Many SEO rookies forget to make a separate title for each web page, losing an opportunity to give search engines more content to review. SEO expert Andrew Shotland recommends putting the most important keywords at the beginning of the title and adding your city name to the titles to hone in on local searches.

7. Make All Titles SEO-Friendly

Whether a blog post headline, URL, or file name, use keywords in all titling. Rich Hargrave of Local Search Source notes, however, that a URL with more than three hyphens can look like spam. Keep naming conventions simple but relevant.

8. Add Text to Audio and Visuals

Search engines scan text to determine relevancy.  If your fancy website is heavy on audio, video, or pictures, it may be visually appealing, but search engines won’t recognize anything. Make sure to include text in the form of captions or transcripts with any of this type of content.

9. Input Correct Keywords

Keywords are the lifeblood of your site’s SEO, so make sure yours are accurate and relevant to the type of consumer you want to attract. You can review Google’s Keyword Tool to find applicable terms. Also take the time to target keywords for individual pages on your site. The SBA recommends three targeted keywords per page.

10. Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free analytics software package that offers data about your website traffic and how it’s performing in search engine rankings. Periodic review of this can clue you in to trends or areas you can improve.

Do you use SEO for your small business? Leave us a comment to tell us how it’s helped you.