Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Diving into Social Media

If you’ve already taken the important step of reserving your user name across social media networks, then you know from looking at the hundreds of opportunities that being everywhere is impossible. (If you haven’t reserved your user name, look back at Step 2 in the preceding section for tips.)

Narrow your options by taking one easy step: Talk with your customers and ask which networks they use. Where they are is where you need to be.

Beyond talking with customers, go to your competitors’ websites and see which social media networks they use. Then visit their social media pages. See what kind of followings they’ve acquired and the nature of the information they share.

Then consider your own target audience and marketing objectives. If you’re working to reach consumers, Facebook and Pinterest are strong choices. For business-to-business marketers, LinkedIn reigns. For general awareness development, Twitter and Pinterest are top contenders, while Facebook is great for building loyalty and customer service, and LinkedIn and Twitter help generate leads.

The most prominent social media networks fall into these categories:

The big dominant ­­social media networks: For networking, target audience interaction, and search engine optimization, the three big players ...