Dec 23, 2009 Posted in Marketing Ideas

Where Your Customers are Going to Research You

It used to be that anyone thinking about doing business with you would first consult with their colleagues or friends to see if any of them had worked with you before. If not, they would likely turn to the Yellow Pages and give you a call. That would put you in a good position because you have total control of the information they receive about you and your company.

Five years ago, that same potential customer would get online and visit your website, learn about your products and services and contact you if they were interested. Again, a good situation for you to be in as you have total control over what appears on your website.

Today, things have changed. Social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. have become so powerful that they constantly appear at the top of the search engine rankings. More importantly, consumers are more apt to trust the information found on these sites because they believe this information is posted by non-partisan people ie. your happy or disgruntled customers and it is more likely to provide them with an honest assessment of what you have to offer. (more…)

Dec 23, 2009 Posted in Marketing Ideas

Why Social Media is Becoming More Critical to Your Business

I have been preaching to small business owners about the importance of utilizing sites like Twitter, Squidoo, LinkedIn, etc. for quite a while now. My experience has taught me that leveraging such powerful social media sites can allow you to build quality links back to your main business site for SEO purposes, to build your credibility as the expert in your field and to create one-on-one relationships with your customers and future customers.

All of that is true but now there is one more reason… and it is a BIGGIE. Check out the video below recently released by Google. Google is showing live Twitter feeds on their search results pages. Considering Twitter is free to use, can any of us afford not to be on there?