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Social media untapped at local level
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| | | Steve Beecham autographs a copy of his book after giving a presentation on the marketing techniques he describes in the book. Bob Pepalis. (click for larger version) | |
October 26, 2009
Roswell – Small, local Businesses are not taking advantage of the opportunities the Internet provides to grow their businesses, according to a half dozen social media experts who held a seminar in Roswell last week.
Mortgage broker Steve Beecham and media expert Hal Coleman opened the seminar, explaining how to achieve more effective business networking. Beecham took a page out of his recent book – called "Bass-Ackwards Business: The Power of Helping Without Hustling."
Greg Cesar, another speaker, explained how Google works with Google Adwords, and how to pick those Adwords for the best results.
Jeff Herring told attendees not only the importance of Facebook and Twitter, he also added article writing tips. Posting articles with helpful tips to the consumer without touting how special a business is was one point made during his talk.
Businessman Mike Stewart showed how a small business owner can market business with video. Stewart advised all the participants to go out and buy a FlipVideo digital video recorder to create short videos introducing their business.
He advised they collect video testimonials from satisfied customers and record short how-tos that apply to their work.
The Internet allows individuals and businesses to have their own radio and TV stations, Stewart said.
Small businesses have not been successfully marketing online because they aren't taken advantage of local search results, he said.
Stewart used Juan Luna's Gainesville restaurant as a case study in which he applied the same lessons he was teaching. Luna recording a welcoming video, has customers' video testimonials and even sent out a video e-mail inviting people on his customer list to a monthly wine tasting. The first wine tasting sold out within 24 hours of sending out that e-mail.
Video e-mail messages are links to pages with video, not the actual videos themselves.
He told the participants to use CAN-SPAM compliant list building software, not Outlook, to collect names and e-mail addresses on a Web site. That software also allows mass e-mails that aren't blocked by corporate spam filters.
"Other forms of advertising are not gone, but there was no Google 25 years ago," Stewart said.
Michael McCoy closed out the day with a talk on how a business can get noticed with the help of the Internet.
To organically grow the number of visitors to Web sites, McCoy recommended increasing the number of high quality sites that link to the business Web site. Link in, not out, he recommended.
Create "killer content." Then high quality Web sites will seek you out to link to your site, McCoy said.
He advised business owners make sure no fluff is in the stories, and to conclude with some way to call to action, which could include links back to your Web site.
 View images.
Tags: Business, Roswell
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