The Myth of Social Media

Why do you think I am stating that should you not use social media to promote your local business? I mean, Web 2.0 is the latest, greatest, right? Common knowledge is, that if you are not doing it you are making a huge mistake, the “it” being Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn,Blogger, Tumblr, and on, and on….

I am going to tell you something shocking. I am telling you not to use social media. It is a big mistake (for most of you). Do you think I am crazy? What I just said goes against 99% of what internet marketers are telling you. Well read on. Here is why I think social media can be a big mistake for a local business person.

Why Social Media Does Not Work (for most local business owners)

In short, the answer is…..Time.

Posting and writing takes time. Time is everyone’s most valuable resource. For a business owner, particularly a small business owner, it is the one thing he or she NEVER has enough of. And the truth is, to do social media well, it takes time.  It requires commitment.

You cannot do social media inconsistently or half-heartedly. While you can do other types of marketing inconsistently and get away with it, social media is much different. It’s all about “the now”.

I say “the now”  because if you do not keep up with social media what happens is that when a prospective customer comes across your Twitter or Facebook page, and you have not posted to it in 6 months, that customer is going to look elsewhere. They are going to think, ” this place is out of business.”

Social media is about building relationships, and relationships do not grow if you do not pay constant attention to them.

Here is what I recommend a local small business person should be doing in regards to internet marketing .

Choose 2 or 3 methods of marketing and be good at them, before you get overwhelmed by the million and ten other things you COULD be doing with your time.

As marketing guru Nicole Dean says, don’t become bogged down struggling with the “shoulds”.

• I “SHOULD” be doing article marketing.
• I “SHOULD” be guest blogging.
• I “SHOULD” be doing press releases.
• I “SHOULD” be doing social marketing.
• I “SHOULD” be doing video marketing.

Set Your Goals as an Internet Marketer

The entire POINT of marketing an offline business is to get local search results, to be number one in your business category. Heck, I do internet marketing for a living and even I cannot keep up with everything. Set your goal for internet marketing, which for a local business should be three things, or what I call the “Triple Whammy”;

• be in the magic 7 (first page) of the Google Places results

• be in the top 3 of the SERPS (organic results)

• be in the Adwords column (PPC)

These 3 things get your business name seen 3 times on one page. To get there, stick with two or three marketing methods, and do them well.

What are the three marketing methods that I think a local business owner needs to concentrate on to achieve the “triple whammy”?

• a good, optimized website

• article marketing

• a blog

Every single one of the above marketing methods can be outsourced cheaply.

While social media can be a good thing, I think social media is still in the experimental stage and is too time consuming for a local business person to get wrapped up in it. It will eat up a lot of your time and provide few benefits in terms of increasing the bottom line.

Get some solid marketing methods in place first. Get your business on the first page of the local search results and in the top 7 of Google Places. Then you can think about starting a social media program.

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your web site: a perpetual stream of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it barely has a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and this results to the web site’s demise. It requires cash to maintain an income-generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole shed-load of cash to create website visitors for your website.

Have you ever wondered how big hit sites drive visitors to their website? Most of them spend tons of money to guide traffic to their websites, investing in many marketing tactics and other kinds of advertising schemes and trickery.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t have their resources. There are many other ways to generate low cost website visitors without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I want to show you to you the top five ways to create low cost website visitors that can help your website a whole lot. Even if you only turn a minute percentage of visitors into clients, it still works, particularly if you get a high number of website traffic.

1] Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven technique. Rarely would you see a website where there is no link to another web site. Many webmasters are eager to exchange links with one another so that they can make more public awareness of their sites. You’ll soon notice and feel the sudden increase of visitors coming to your web site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in swapping links with other websites is being in the same niche or content as the other web site. They should share a common subject matter so that there is continuity in the provision of service and information that interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also increases your chances of obtaining a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines rank sites high that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will create more visitors to your website without high costs.

2] Traffic Exchanges

This is like exchanging links but on a different level. This will take a bit more work than swapping or trading links but can be cheaper because you earn credits.

People look at someone else’s website, in exchange for someone viewing yours. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate visitors. The other website’s visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as their own. Once again public awareness of your site’s existence is boosted.

3] Write and Submit Articles

There are lots of e-zines and online encyclopedias on the Internet which provide free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. However, there are many freelance writers who are eager to write for you for a small payment, but to save money, it is better to write the articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed with the subject matter of your site. Write something that you have knowledge on so that when people read it, they can sense your knowledge on the subject matter and will be ready to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your web site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that links back to your website. Write a little about yourself and your web site. If you provide an information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your website for more.

4] Write a Newsletter.

This might sound like hard work because of all the articles you will need to write to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are keen to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in your newsletter, because this will also provide free marketing for them as well.

As your newsletter gets passed around, you can enlarge your public awareness and build an opt-in list that will frequently visit your web site.

5] Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your skill and proficiency with many online communities.You get free marketing when you go to forums that have the identical subject or niche with your site.