Small Business Trends

It’s time for more social media updates for your small business and others in your network. Are you using social media to its full potential? Here are some steps and important information to point you in the right direction.

Trends

Two thirds of small businesses are already using social media. If you haven’t started, you are probably being left behind. If your competitors have already started using social media to connect with customers and you haven’t done so, what will this likely mean when you’re customers seek someone in your market to interact with online and find you aren’t there? ComputerWeekly.com

Why more and more small businesses get social media. Yep, more and more data suggests that small businesses are really warming up to this social media thing. Maybe the best question might be, what took them so long? The survey also suggests larger firms are already using this new platform more effectively than their smaller counterparts. eMarketer

Tips

Three tips when getting started with social media. You may know it’s time to get into the game but unsure of how to move forward. Social media will involve a learning curve for your small business, but not an insurmountable one. Here are some simple tips that will get you up and running with social media in no time. BizReport

Tech

Social media requires many details…and tools to manage them. Effective social media management requires keeping many “plates” in the air as far as managing and taking care of a variety of different channels. And with the need for greater and greater productivity, we can also count on the development of tools like Engage 121 to help us stay in touch. Information WeekSMB

Franchising

Social media among the new franchise trends for 2011. Our friend Joel Libava, The Franchise King, has done another great job of assembling information on the vast and ever changing franchise industry. Here he collects some trends for 2011, including notably social media for lead gathering. Small Business Trends

Strategy

Are you using your social media effectively? Using it to drive “sales, services, and marketing.” There are simple steps you can use to get yourself started. And simple steps you can take to get yourself back to your roots. Social media really should be driving your business boosting your brand, client numbers and revenue. If not, consider overhauling your campaign to deliver the results you need. Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Why your small business NEEDS social media today. Are you seeing use of social media for your small business as another chore to be avoided? Instead, try looking at it as a passion to be embraced. Say, like a plate full of your favorite BBQ at a great backyard picnic. The Brainchild Group

Self-development

Social media makes it easier to spread any message cheaply. Basically the same thing that makes social media an appealing tool for small businesses in the first place, can make it a force for good in any community. Read this post about how a group of businesses banded together to meet a need in their community using nothing but the power of social media. LehighValleyLive.com

Resources

Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business. For those not yet familiar with the basics of social media or how to use the medium to take your business to the next level, there may be no better place to start than with the latest version of John Jantsch’s ebook. “Version two” is a 42 page resource guide from blogs to the social Web and takes in all points in between. If you’re looking for a basic guide, John’s ebook is it! Duct Tape Marketing

A simple guide to delivering value. Using social media well is not about advertising or PR so much as it is about creating value, value of high enough quality that it will bring your followers back again and again because of what you have to say and the resources you have to share. In this roundup of favorite Twitter links, Ross Kimbarovsky shows us how to create the kind of value that will keep a dedicated niche following coming back for more…and then some. crowdSpring