One of the first things I address when coaching a Business Development client is about growing their business through the use of Social Networking.  Business off all sizes have embraced the use of Social Networking as a marketing tool. These entities are not just purchasing Facebook ads and the like, but creating business pages wherein customers and clients can interact with the business. It’s quick, it’s relatively easy (once you understand how they work), and its free PR and advertising.

Now you may already appreciate the need for social network marketing, but many small business owners tend to assign either too much or too little attention to this fast rising facet of small business marketing. If you spend too much time on it, you will likely lose two to three hours a day of your valuable time setting up and updating the myriad of pages necessary to achieve full search engine optimization and the free marketing that comes from multiple site accounts. Spend too little time and you will miss out on the aforementioned benefits.

Once you’ve established your business’s social sites, an often ignored step is to track your audience. After a few months, you will learn which sites gain you the most attention (and subsequently more business), which types of postings generate the most buzz, etc.  Then you can customize your marketing plan to prioritize the times, styles, and quantities of your postings to these sites.

Which leads us to the third issue: who will conduct your business’s social networking. If you are a small start-up business or sole-practitioner, then it will undoubtedly fall upon your shoulders to be the Social Networking Coordinator.  The problem is that as previously stated, this can be very time-consuming, especially if you are not very adept at utilizing these sites. Conversely, you likely do not have a budget to hire someone to be that coordinator. This is when planning is key. With a well-defined marketing plan, you can designate which sites are most effective to your business, and schedule a small chunk of weekly time (although daily is preferred) to conduct your posts and updates.

Whether you are an old-school business owner less interested or adept at utilizing the social networks, or an aggressive new-age entrepreneur, let me give you a quick crash course on understanding the differences between each of these famous networks. Understanding the demographics that swim within each site will better help any business owner know where and what to post to gain maximum marketing effect.

FACEBOOK:  A place to update friends and family about your life

Although FB has lately experienced a downturn in attendance from younger demographics (12-21), this is still the best place to promote your home-grown business to the demographic that holds the purse strings – adults/parents.  Sales, promotions, or eye-catching posts placed during early mornings (as they get to work) and post-dinner (after the kids are fed) will likely gain you the most attention. But FB fans from the ages of 21-55 have FB linked to their smart phones or playing the background of the desktops and can keep an eye on activity all throughout the day, which you should capitalize on.

TWITTER:  A place to make a brief statement designed to illicit a response

Twitter is fast paced and more geared towards people talking rather than listening. If your followers are following more than 100 hundred accounts, unless you tweet constantly, your tweets will likely be missed. (The “news feed” flows by very fast when hundreds of twitterers are all twittering at once!) But one key here is that you can link your Twitter and FB pages together so that any Tweet from you is automatically repeated on FB.  Now you have achieved instant double marketing.

PINTEREST:  A place to show the world what interests you

The primary demographic on this site is women, ages 20-60. Their main focuses: fitness, food, fashion, crafts, travel, and family. If your business is suited to this audience, you should be all over this site.  Once again, the beauty of cross-linking is that you can have this site link to twitter and FB. Post once, it can automatically be on 3 sites.  Having “boards” (boards and pins within those boards are the basic platform here) that cover not only what your service/product is, but arenas that relate will gain you many followers quickly. (E.g., your product is salsa, so having boards about cooking, recipes, organic foods, parties, would increase your view rate.)

INSTAGRAM:  The place to post a stylized picture, a few words, and off it goes

Definitely the preferred site for the younger demographic and not a great self-advertising platform, but depending upon your products’ age focus, this site could definitely give you a leg up on the competition if you approach it youthfully enough. It’s really a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter, blending photos with quick commentary.

TUMBLER:  A hybrid between FB, Twitter, Instagram and a Blog.

This is the site if you want to do a little of this and a little of that.  You can have blog-length entries, you can post a picture with a small caption, you can leave a twitter length statement, or you can update the world on your world. The primary audience for Tumbler is on the younger side, but again, it’s all about your business and who it suits. Like FB, friends tend to chat back and forth, but like Twitter and Instagram it’s quick and well supported by smart phones.

LINKEDIN:  A Place to Make Business Contacts

LinkedIn helps you create essential contact and reciprocal relationships with businesses, suppliers, and clients. You can give and receive recommendations, all of which help legitimize your business/services, and post updates on your business’s achievements and growth.  Once again, this site offers links to Twitter, and if you have twitter liked to FB, then there’s another 3-for-1 posting.

There are a many more sites all of which may or may not have something to offer your business, only you can ascertain that by perusing those sites (i.e., Digg, Flicker, Blogger, YouTube, WordPress, etc.).  But I’ve listed the cream of the crop in my estimation as far as business promotion is concerned.  Hopefully this helps you better understand this new world of internet self-promotion. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to set up a Business Development or Social Network Marketing consultation.