Dec

15

Blogging and Social Media Essential for Local Business Websites

Filed Under Website Marketing 

Blogging and Social Media have come a long way.

Blogs evolved from the concept of an online journal. When first conceived, they were used mainly by people to keep personal notes, post pictures and ideas. Blogs were seen as something housewives and artists used to create online presence. This is no longer the case. Now, almost every business, either online of offline, needs a blog.

Social Media was much the same way. Viewed at first as a tool for students to connect, Facebok is now successfully used for online business marketing. Other social media sites are catching up fast. Sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and flickr are becoming business essentials.

So what can a blog and social media do for your local business website?

People like to feel they know the people they are doing business with. They like to feel they can trust the business. They like to know the business is community oriented and involved. For a traditional business this concept is sometimes hard to convey. A blog on a business website, and integrating social media, can inform customers of current news or offers, educate, and entertain visitors.

Community events, charities and even small events hosted by the business such as celebrations, birthday parties, and classes, can be advertised. Pictures can be posted, including those of customers enjoying the events. If the business participates at a community event, such as a cleanup for example, post the event with pictures. Blogs and social media are a way for your customer to get to know the business and what you do in the community.

Blogs will bring traffic to your website. While your business may be a traditional local business without online sales, it is still important to bring traffic to your site because your customers are online even if they aren’t buying a product or service from you online. Traffic means people who are interested in stopping by the physical store are stopping by your website to see what you are all about. Blogs that are updated frequently will help improve search engine ranking and will increase your traffic and potential client base.

Blogs and social media give you a real time connection to your customers, more so than your website does. They should be kept current, updated on a frequent basis. A customer can go to your blog or Facebook page and see what is going on now. Where your website may be static and offer great information, the blog and social media is where they get current communication from your business.

Four years ago, in a BusinessWeek article for May 2, 2005, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm, it states there are 9 million blogs with 40,000 new blogs each day. These numbers have grown significantly since then.

More and more businesses are reaching their customers through their blogs. Facebook, a social website that loves pictures, has more than 120 million users log on every day. Twitter, the micro blog that likes video links, is fast approaching with over 3 million “tweets” being sent a day. Can your local business really afford to miss using these valuable tools?

Comments

3 Responses to “Blogging and Social Media Essential for Local Business Websites”

  1. Buisness Marketing on July 24th, 2009 9:41 am

    Very nice post. Sucessful buisness marketing can be done by educating and entertaining people. Telephonic marketing and Television marketing has become very famous.Educating people through marketing campaigns really works and is very effective as people are hungry for knowledge. If you have resource, talent and right knowledge you will be successful in creating a good entertaining ad. For more details refer http://www.bloggingwithchris.com/small-business-marketing-followed-by-2-es/

  2. Rachel Henke on November 21st, 2009 2:04 pm

    This covers some really essential information on the core essentials of using blogs to bring business. So many people are looking for a better understanding of how to make a blog work for them. It’s a great post Vicki that beginners can understand easily. Well done!

  3. Elmar on February 8th, 2010 8:40 am

    Thank you for sharing this great information. This would give newbie marketers an idea why they have to capitalize on their blogs if they want to flourish in their online business.

    There are also many things one can do to improve content on the blogs. They can use videos on it for examples or some podcasts as well. So it’s not as drab as writing all the time.

    All the best,
    Elmar

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