Best Small Biz Social Management Tips


Are you managing a social media account or research for your business? The fact is, social media can be useful for lots of things beyond just marketing. Want a closer look? No matter what purpose you might use social media for in your SMB, you will need some way to manage the results. Here’s how.

Basic Techniques

Using analytics to measure your results. The same kinds of tools used to examine a click through or SEO campaign can now be directed to examine the effectiveness of social media. If you want to know whether your social media campaign is working effectively, get your hands on one of these tools and have look for yourself. Small Business Trends

Hunting for customers on Twitter. If you think Twitter is just for spreading the word about your business, think again. It is also a great tool for making connections. In particular, you can use Twitter to search for those who might be future customers and follow them. Building these relationships can be the key. Small Business Bliss

Top Trends

Can social media make your business smarter? Maybe, as your monitoring and management of the social media universe and more particularly what’s being said about your company or brand gets faster and faster and eventually reaches the point of real-time information. This monitoring could eventually be a kind of social intelligence for your business. How would you use it? Dachis Group

Preventing the social media “time suck.” While many entrepreneurs admit it’s useful, they also complain about the time it takes to use social media correctly and integrate it into their business. An important part of social management is to figure out how to launch and monitor your social media efforts without the time you need to run your core business. WSJ

Tools & Tech

Social sponsorship opens a whole new market. Forget Google AdSense! There are some numbers now to add meat to the bones of an idea started by Facebook a few months ago. It’s called “sponsored stories” and is already out performing traditional advertising…and then some. Fast Company

New product helps small business plan social strategy. A Cambridge Massachusetts company will release a series of “expert-configured handbooks” helping small businesses map out a social business strategy. The new product is being offered in the form of Software as a Service and will be available on a monthly subscription basis. Mass High Tech

Growing Business

Social media meets e-commerce, banking? Facebook may soon have it all and with a growing number of retail stores already part of its online mall and a credit system in place, it may be a great opportunity for online small business retailers seeking a location liable to experience heavy traffic. Forbes

Five tips for growing your business with social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Tumblr: all can be used as a portion of a successful social media campaign for your small business. But each also has distinctly different functions. Here are some thoughts on maximizing all to their full potential. Fox Small Business Center

Self-development

Small businesses still in the dark. Returning to the panel of small business owners and online entrepreneurs from above, this second story focuses on how lost and clueless the small business community continues to be about social media. In fairness, here at Small Business Trends we feel some small businesses understand social media just fine. PCMag.com

Do you know how to use social media? Some businesses certainly do and your business can learn as well. Though there’s probably no one way to use and manage social media effectively (it depends on your business) some basic principles will help you develop a strategy that is best for you and your brand. You’re The Boss

6 Comments ▼
6 Reactions
  1. Nice social media round-up.

    The amount of social media strategy posts that are still being written amaze me.

    I guess it means that social media marketing is working. Well.

    The Franchise King®

  2. Social Media for small business is a free and necessary tool to use to grow any business. I recently wrote a blog on how to establish the foundation for a successful and comprehensive social media strategy.

  3. Darren J Deverux

    A very useful collection of data that I will definitely direct people to as a starting point.

  4. The “time suck” is a big issue with integrating social media into any small business. The time spent on personal accounts is outrageous and multiplies by at least 5 when you integrate social media into a business. One reason for this phenomenon is, a business needs to monitor all the chatter that is being said on its Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Yelp ect., in order to really get results. However, because there is a growing need for social media monitoring services, a multitude of these services are cropping up everywhere. One of the better services is chatmeter.com, because it gathers all of the social media sites on one dash board so that they can be monitored from one location. It also gives companies insight on how they compare to their competitors while helping improve ranking by clearing inconsistent company data across the web. I use them for my dad’s landscaping business and it makes my life so much easier when managing his on-line reputation.

  5. Great tips! Analytics is still the best way to see if your strategies are effective.

    I recently read about klout score, what are your thoughts on this?

  6. @Stephen – Thanks for sharing that tool! I’ll have to check it out. Always interested in finding ways to make social media easier 🙂

    @Jessica – There are definitely varying opinions on Klout score. It certainly isn’t a perfect measurement, but it does offer some interesting info. I personally check it out from time to time, but I don’t get hung up on it. It also takes time to build up, so if you’re a newbie, don’t get discouraged by a low score. Just keep on focusing on genuine interactions and sharing quality info.