Make the Most of Your Social Media Time Investment

By David Mihm

Social media as a marketing channel has attracted a growing number of local business owners over the past decade, in no small part due to the potential to reach a huge audience with minimal (or no) financial investment.

Increasingly, though, numerous studies (like these from Internet Yellow Pages site Manta) indicate that business owners are increasingly realizing the time they’re investing on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest isn’t justified by the financial return.

That’s why it’s important to take a step back, either as you’re forming your social media strategy or taking another look at it, to pursue the best social media options for YOUR business.

I. Understand what your customers and prospects are looking for.
ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers” report is a great place to start. According to this survey, discounts, freebies, promotions, and sales are four of the primary reasons consumers like companies on Facebook. Getting updates on the products and activities of the company are two of the other high-scoring responses. If you don’t plan to offer, or your business isn’t well suited for, either updates or discounts, your energy spent on social media may not be all that productive.

Social media can also be a validator for consumers on the fence about who to do business with, though. 63% are more likely to do business with a local company with a reasonable social media presence. So even if it doesn’t gain you any new prospects, it might prevent you from losing them.

II. Decide what your goals are.
Manta found that 72% of business owners used social media in the hopes of generating new business. Unfortunately there’s a fundamental disconnect between those 72% of business owners and the consumers they’re trying to acquire. Most social media sites (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest) are not primarily suited for customer acquisition.

In contrast, visitors to local-social search engines like Google+, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Internet Yellow Pages sites are actively seeking out information on local businesses like yours. So if your primary goal is customer acquisition, then consider social media activities that are likely to improve your search rankings and drive both web and foot traffic from these sites.

Blogging is one of these activities. There’s tons of evidence to suggest all kinds of Search Engine Optimization benefits from blogging. Creating a steady stream of content relevant to your business attracts both customers and search engines. (See Section IV for more social media ideas that can lead to better search rankings.)

If your goal is building deeper relationships with existing customers, this is where social media shines as a marketing channel. Continuous engagement and making your customers feel like they’re an integral part of your company can require a substantial time commitment, though, so make sure you’re ready for this.

III. Decide what your weekly time budget is.
According to the Manta study I previously cited, the majority of business owners spend less than four hours a week on social media, which is fairly typical of most businesses I used to consult with. This makes it awfully tough to succeed at either of the two activities above (blogging and community-building). With only a couple hours at your disposal, you might do better with less time-intensive content- or community-building strategies.

For instance, becoming a regular commenter on prominent blogs in your local area doesn’t require a set time commitment, only that you contribute something relevant if a particular article strikes your fancy.

Participating in question-and-answer forums relevant to your industry, like those on Quora or other sites like it, can yield not only direct business opportunities but also social connections that lead to indirect opportunities down the road.

Engaging with other merchants on an occasional basis can be a winning strategy, too, just as you would network at your local Rotary Club or Chamber of Commerce meeting. Business-to-business reviews on Google+ are just one way to do this online.

And don’t hesitate to ask your customers where you should be spending your time. If very little of your audience is on Twitter, for example, there’s no reason for you to be there either. Query your existing followers to see what kind of content they’d like to see more of in the future, too. (Facebook in particular offers a great polling feature.)

IV. Enable your customers.
A terrific way to spend your time efficiently, build your community, AND help your search engine rankings is to have your customers help you create social content.

The first way they can do this is by leaving reviews of your business on prominent local search sites. Not only does this serve as a social validation signal for prospective customers reading those reviews, but businesses with higher volumes of reviews across these sites tend to rank better on Google than those with lower volumes. The keywords included by customers in reviews can also help your rankings for those phrases.

Beyond reviews, there are also interviews. These can be done either via email or filmed with a smartphone. YouTube, after all, is the second largest search engine, and thanks to its integration with Google+ must now be considered a social platform as well. Videos are also one of the most frequently shared content types on Facebook. And there’s nothing like an interview with a happy existing customer to convert prospects into new customers.

V. Track what’s performing.
Not only do you want to see if your social media efforts are paying off, but you want to invest more of your time in the channels that are working, and less in the channels that aren’t.

Paying special attention to your referrals in Google Analytics to see which social websites are sending you the most traffic is the first step in that process.

But you probably also want to know which of these sites are sending the most customers, not just visitors. While offering coupon or discount codes that are specific to each platform is one way to do it, oftentimes the old-fashioned way — simply asking customers “how’d you hear about us” — is the best tracking mechanism of all.

If there’s one overarching tip I could give you on your social media strategy, it’s this:

Invest time in social media in the places where your customers are asking you to spend it, and where most of them are already coming from.

And hey, that’ll even fit in a 140-character tweet :)

David Mihm is one of the world’s leading practitioners of local search engine marketing.

Image courtesy of photoraidz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net