A lot of people have been asking about the recent Google Places update.  What do the changes mean for local marketing?  I just read a very informative post on the subject which you can also read here.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site and is widely used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world.  It allows people to share and stay connected with others by creating either a personal or professional profile, or a business or fan page.  Fan pages are public profiles with a customizable presence that allows businesses to interact with users.  With over 500 million users who could be potential consumers and advocates, marketers have engaged themselves into social networking to market their local businesses.

One benefit of having a fan page is publicity.  You start by naming your page with your business or the specific brand or product that you are marketing.  Then, upload a picture using your company’s logo, a picture of either your building or your product, or anything that you think would best represent your business.  In order for the users to locate your company, you must add the basic but detailed information including the full name of your business or product, business address, operating hours and the payment options.  You could also customize your page by adding pictures, videos and applications to make it more appealing to the users.  Invite your friends and your current customers to become a fan of your page.  You could also find more fans by using Facebook Ads, which is a form of paid advertising.  Users can become a fan by simply clicking the link, and the action automatically generates a story into the News Feeds, thus easily spreading and generating a free distribution.

Communication is an important element in marketing, and this is one of the many benefits provided by a fan page.  After having successfully enhanced your fan page, start by welcoming your fans to make them feel comfortable and generate a topic in the discussion board to encourage them to participate.  Take note that every action generates a story that would be visible in the users’ home pages, thus make sure you post interesting and relevant information to your wall.

Many customers refer to social networking sites to get the latest updates of their favorite products, and the Facebook Page provides them an easy way to do that whenever and where ever they are.  The traditional way of business promotion and product endorsements is costly and time consuming.  With these great features offered by fan pages, marketers are not just able to promote their local businesses but also interact and build relationships with the consumers, and get feedback from them in a timely manner.

If you have a local business, one thing you must consider is how to advertise you business or draw the public’s attention to your products or services.  You may have spent hundreds, or even thousands of dollars to get your business listed in as many directories as you can.  Here is one solution that will save you money, time and effort.

Surely you’ve heard of Google, but it’s much more than just a search engine.  There is also an application called Google Maps that provides web mapping services.  It allows your business to be listed and published so that it will be visible to the local community and even worldwide.  Having a free listing makes it easy for people to locate your business using their personal computers or web-enabled mobile phones.

Use Google Places to create your listing.  Before getting started, you have to check your country availability as Google Places is available in certain countries only for businesses.  This service is totally free.  All you need to have is a mailing address.  Make sure that you only have one listing; however, if you offer many services, you can enumerate that in your business description and category.  If you do not already have a Google account, you’ll need to create one before adding your business to Google Places.

If you want the public to locate you, make sure you enter the correct information such as your business name using standard capitalization and punctuation, address and contact numbers.  You can then provide additional information including your business email, website, description of the services you offer, operating hours as well as methods of payment that you accept.  After verifying your listing, you can further enhance your page by adding photos, videos, reviews, special offers and latest updates.

Another cool feature of this application is that it allows you to embed your Google Map site into your business website using the Google Maps API.  In addition, there is also a Java application called Google Maps for Mobile that enables people to locate your business through their mobile devices.

Google Maps offers a great help for local businesses.  With this advanced technology, you will have the opportunity to connect to the people without going through the tiring efforts of traditional advertising.  Unlike the Yellow Pages or other directory providers, Google Maps enables you to have a more friendly approach by sharing more than just the basic information.  Also, you can edit your listing quickly & easily and the updated listing will appear within Google’s search results fairly quickly.  What more could you ask for?  Google Maps enables you to provide real-time updates to the public, increases your visibility, and is absolutely free!

Twitter is a social networking platform that enables you to communicate worldwide through messages called “tweets,” which are limited to 140 characters.  With its increasing popularity, many marketers have found it essential in their local businesses in terms of connection and engagement with the public.  This micro-blogging service is totally free, and it provides many functions in local marketing.  With a deeper understanding of what Twitter can do, marketers can fully enjoy and maximize its benefits.

The first step is to create a Twitter account with the business name as the username.  For example, if your company is called “Acme Widgets”, your profile could be: twitter.com/acmewidgets or twitter.com/acme_widgets.  Next, add a photo to your profile to provide more authenticity with a short but attention-grabbing description that would encourage people to follow you.  Then, start building your community.  Search for potential consumers and ask your current customers to follow you.

Twitter offers a more effective way in reaching out to your community.  One of its best assets is its speed.  You can easily communicate to the people through your tweets, which are brief and easy to read unlike some lengthy newsletters and blogs.  You can post links to your company’s website or blog.  Tweets are readily visible to your followers’ timelines.  Set your profile to public to make it visible to everybody.  One nice thing  about Twitter is that your followers can “retweet” your post, which can make your tweets go viral.  Furthermore, you can attract non-followers by providing the right keywords in your tweets as many users utilize the search engine found Twitter’s homepage to search for their interests.

With over 100 million Twitter users, the search function can be a very beneficial tool for brand name monitoring and reputation management.  You can easily get fast and up-to-date information on the latest happenings related to your business.  An easy way to give you real-time updates is by saving each search as an RSS feed.  That way, you will be notified each time someone mentions your company.

In order to grow your business, you should learn to accept feedback and/or criticism about your company.  Tweets do not always need to be promotional.  Instead, you can ask questions or survey your followers, then use the information gathered to hone your marketing strategy.

With all the functions offered by Twitter, it’s important to understand that you are creating this account for marketing purposes and not for selling.  You have to keep in mind that connecting with your followers and developing a good relationship with them are the key elements to fully serve its purpose.  Don’t be too aggressive or intrusive with your tweets.  Have a conservative approach and as you get used to it, you will be able to enjoy Twitter as if you were just having conversations and sharing insights with the community while developing your marketing strategy.

If you have a business that operates in a limited geographic area, it’s important to make sure your customers can find you when searching for your products or services online.  If your website is not listed on the 1st page of the search engine results when customers search for keywords related to your business, then chances are high that those customers will end up going to your competitors.

So, the question is:  “How to get your local business website on page one of the search results for your top keywords?”  The answer to that is search engine optimization or SEO.

What is SEO?  SEO is the process of developing a website’s visibility to get a higher rank in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN).  Most people access the internet to get information about the products they want to purchase or to find out which companies they want to do business with.

SEO has been utilized as a marketing strategy as it is a tool that optimizes the prominence of local business websites by increasing the relevance to specific keywords, editing the content and HTML, cross linking between important pages of the same site, making URLs SEO friendly and promoting a site to increase links.  These methods increase organic search traffic leading to more visits, more sales and (hopefully) a bigger profit.

Seldom do people go past page 1 of the search engine results.  Therefore it is very important to optimize your website’s visibility.  The first thing to do is manage you business profile.  Make sure that the basic information of your business is accurate and consistent.  You must provide the complete address with the zip code and give extra prominence to your address and local phone number your “Contact Us” page.  Then, get your local business listed in Google Maps.  It provides a free local map and driving directions that, with proper input, will make your website appear on the first page of the Google search engine.

Next, add unique and relevant content to your website.  You also have to identify the keyword phrases and use local terms and phrases in the link text, page titles and text, meta tags and other key places.  Making in-bound site links will also improve the local search engine results.

Going through the yellow pages or newspaper takes a lot of time and effort, whereas searching online gives you quick results and answers.  Today, Google is the most popular search engine.  Thus making it to the 1st page of this search engine would help local businesses achieve their target sales and increase their revenue.  With good SEO, local businesses can increase their presence online, establish credibility and generate more revenue.

In this raging era of technology, social media has taken a great role in marketing plans for small businesses.  Social media can take many different forms, including:  picture sharing, music sharing, video sharing, forums, blogging and email.  Millions of people utilize social media every day to have access on anything of their interest and this “boom” has caused marketers to see the importance of implementing social media into their marketing mix.

Social media enables small & large companies to connect with prospects & customers quickly, easily and in “real time”.  Whether starting a new business or a growing an already existing business, companies are able to reach their target audience and engage that audience through their demands and feedback from social networking, blogging and forums.

One of the most attractive features of using social media marketing is the short time lag of communication.  The active audience can give nearly instantaneous responses which can then be taken into consideration in marketing plans.  Marketers are able to gain immediate and actual responses from prospects.  Therefore, they can easily integrate their ideas with the customer’s demands, thus providing a better product.

Ease of accessibility is another huge advantage to using social media marketing.  Marketers use web-based technologies to broadcast and promote their products with little or no cost at all.  Rather than relying on the “old school” strategy of spending millions of dollars for conventional advertising such as TV, radio and print, companies can now use social media to get their marketing message across to their target demo.

One key element in successful marketing through social media is having the ability for companies large and small to establish their reputation in their respective niche.  Through social media, marketers can engage their prospects on websites that have gained their credibility over time.  People can grasp a lot of information from the media, and they tend to choose what they believe.  Thus, by participating in a social networking site that verifies the user generated content, consumers may be able to realize that what they are reading is truthful and reliable.

Also, the active audiences on social networking sites are kept more up-to-date on the latest trends and are also able to interact with other consumers and share their own experiences creating a better communication between the two parties.  However, with the rapid growth of social media websites, one must take into consideration that providing genuine information would be the best course of action in having a successful marketing campaign through social media.

Implementing social media into marketing plans can benefit both the marketers and the consumers.  Having social marketing integrated into business can result in easy, convenient and low-cost marketing.

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