Chamber Event Teaches Benefits of Social Media for Business

At  a new restaurant on Route 9 on Thursday afternoon, a group of local businesses got together through the chamber of commerce to learn how to help bring their companies into the 21st century. 

The chamber held a Lunch & Learn session on the value social media websites can have for getting their name out and bringing more business in. The members and potential members ranged from people in the medical field, to insurance agents, to people in the entertainment industry.

As Linda Coppolino of Little Hat Marketing & Design pointed out, no matter what area companies work in, having a presence on sites like Facebook and Twitter can be extremely beneficial. Coppolino pointed to her own company's success, in not only using the social media sites, but also helping others make the most of their opportunities on the internet. 

With more than 600 million people on Facebook and close to 700,000 local businesses having pages on the site, Coppolino said there are many benefits to using the site, not the least of which is that it is a free service for its members. 

Coppolino said in these tough economic times, being able to publicize your business for no cost can help to get them further into their respective markets. "It's the most popular subject right now for businesses," she said. 

Most people see sites like Facebook as a site geared mostly toward people in their 20's and 30's, but Coppolino said it is expanding into older generations as well. It is not just who uses the site, but how they use it as well Coppolino said. "Set up a structure and use it," she said. "It's what we have today, it's free so take full advantage of it."

Taking full advantage of the site means having content that will not only draw people there, but also then back to the company's website according to Coppolino. "Content is king because it's sharing information," she said. For service companies that might mean mostly articles, while other companies can share pictures and videos of their product related materials. 

Susan Dominguez, the Executive Director of the Howell Chamber of Commerce said she was glad to be able to bring such an important issue to the township. "You can see by the turnout we had that this is definitely a hot topic and that everybody's interested in," she said. "For us right now it's very important to us to get people out there, get businesses to network and share their services."

The chamber has a website, a facebook page and a Twitter feed, which Dominguez said helps them to get their message out to as many people as possible. "It gives us more ways to get the word out as to our events, some of the specials that we have in terms of our prorated membership dues and sharing the information with the community because there's more than just business to business going on," she said.

The next big chamber event is schedule for July 28 at  on how to use blogging and Google to further get a company's name out on the search engine.