It’s not the end all answer, but it’s quick, painless, and free – a way to get your name in front of your local audience. It tends to result in posting a special offer or something that promotes the business. While there’s nothing wrong with that … other than the obvious loss of income from price discounting … we may get better results if we have a little fun with our audience.

Here’s a recent example:

My husband and I rescued a tiny, frail chipmunk a few weeks ago. It was dehydrated and hungry, and perked right up after some water and a little peanut butter. We attempted to reintroduce it to our backyard a couple of days later, but it clearly wasn’t going to work, and we had already grown attached to this really cute little rodent.

Meanwhile, my husband started posting pictures and updates about Chippy on his Facebook wall – and oh my, the response to those updates was amazing! Not just on Facebook, but when Gerald is out taking photos, people stop to ask him about Chippy! Last night, by popular request, he created a Facebook page for Chippy.

Just 12 hours later, that page had over 40 followers.

As a marketer, I’m always looking for ways to help businesses connect with new customers. So, is there a takeaway from a Facebook page not related to sales for gaining followers quickly? (Hopefully, your target audience includes people.

I think people are drawn to Chippy because it’s a feel good story/life to follow, and in this day and age, those feel good stories are few and far between. Personally, I wait for photo updates from Jerry every day on Chippy.” ~ Kristine Feldmann on Facebook

As business owners, we need to remember that it’s not about us. Whether our target audience is moms, dads, kids, seniors, or other businesses, it’s always, without fail, comprised of people.

How can you interest them? What will they respond to? How can we engage them in a fun, maybe offbeat way to get their attention?

A.I.D.A. is a marketing acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. It’s the basic principle behind all effective advertising copywriting. Notice that attention and interest precede desire.

Facebook pages aren’t about direct advertising, but they clearly draw attention to your business. The acronym is still, if not more, relevant in social media. What can you do today to attract the attention of your target audience?

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about chipmunks, believe it or not. Click here to read 5 Small Business Tips from a Chipmunk

Trends are like a pendulum. They swing this way for a time, and then momentum swings them the other direction. The backbone of America has been working very hard, and financially, many haven’t really reaped the rewards they’d hoped. So you get some burnout, and some casual conversation makes it all better. Pretty soon businesses catch on that they should have a presence where the people are. And they’re online BIG TIME. Cell phones, iPads – now you can Twitter from your television set.

Now trending  says if we’re not casually talking about various subjects online, people won’t know us enough to trust us or buy from us. So if you’re hard-working and don’t have time to impress people that probably don’t have any connection with you or your company, you won’t be a viable business?

Who else is calling that malarky? (Well, we are – so join the club.)

You have a viable business, and you’re WORKING at it. You need to know how to let people know you – without wasting your valuable and precious time. Learn about your customer so you can continue to produce what they will buy. Trends will change again, and when they do, don’t be at the mercy of those who went on before you.  Learn how to affect those trends – NOT the other way around.

Look, there are smart ways to go about it, but the goals have to be positive for your business.

Download our free reference guide, The Very Best Way To Use Twitter For Local Business today, and find out what you’re missing.

Once your business is using a Twitter tool, you’ll be able to understand why you needed the account. These tools make it possible to monitor conversations, company mentions, and local tweeps you’d like to follow. Twellow.com will help you begin building a local base of followers that will usually begin to follow you back within a couple of days.

Check in a couple of times every day to make sure your company has a presence in the twitterverse. In as little as 30 minutes per day, you can start to focus your company messages and interactions to a local market that is more likely to purchase than any other crowd you could target.

While I do recommend SocialOomph.com, I don’t recommend it until your staff becomes familiar with basic Twitter use. Once the fundamentals are understood, move on to SocialOomph and begin to take advantage of scheduling your tweets. If you schedule your basic marketing messages, you will be able to use the other tools for the more interactive, friendly conversation that truly gives your company a personality and two-way component.

Remember to retweet messages from other sources that will benefit your followers, and post your blog URLs and specials so that local customers know what you’re all about. Tweetdeck and Hootsuite have columns that will hold messages in front of you that will be there when you check back after signing off, so make sure you respond to those messages when you return.

If you would like to learn more about what Twitter offers the local market, and how it can be used effectively by your entire office staff, download your free copy of The Very Best Way to Use Twitter for Local Business, and start seeing the results a Twitter strategy can bring to your company.

For business purposes, online social networking’s closest kin is the local business networking event. It’s an opportunity to meet people and begin building relationships that may lead to doing business somewhere down the road. You share interesting tidbits of information relevant to you or your business and useful to your market. But simply broadcasting your information is not enough. It’s just as important to engage in conversation.

• Ask questions.
• Respond to what others are saying.
• Retweet (resend or share) links from your followers that will also interest others in your audience.
• Share enough of your personal self to be seen as a real person, but not so much as to annoy your followers with your every move and thought.

Yes, we have seen relationships develop into sales via Twitter and Facebook. And don’t forget that Google, Bing, and many other smaller search engines index your public status updates. Those two points should be enough to convince even the busiest business owner to take a second look at making the most of both.

Ready to take the leap? Follow @ShariV on Twitter and fan Zero To Sixty Marketing LLC on Facebook

Image Credit: polandeze on flickr

This guy gets $1.00 for creativity! I found this on Flickr while I was looking for something else. Reminded me that it’s important to get a chuckle or two in each day to keep perspectives fresh. That’s one reason I dig Twitter. I have a pretty unusual group of followers that all have one thing in common, they’re funny.

There’s the rich woman from Hawaii who’s addicted to Twitter and has a huge following of funny people. Some of them were wishing someone hadn’t brought their ex on vacation last week. I have a handful of Internet marketers and coaches that have a proclivity to post the insightful…often. Every once and a while I get to hear something like, “You can’t always control the wind, but you can control the sails,” and I have to respond with “could be the start of a lil joke…” and in return I get, “Haha, Beano!”

Makes for a little curl of the lips.

There’s a group of SEO specialists who send out funny stuff all the time, stuff too “not pc” to share on this post, a couple of people who fancy themselves the news analysts of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and several moms who’ve made successful businesses from their specific nuances. I stay abreast of local copywriting news in my area, Dallas, and make sure I pay attention to niche writers covering some of the material I need to research when writing for my clients.

I use the Twhirl application to keep me plugged in while I’m working, but I use Hootsuite for posting tweets because the analytics are good and I can schedule my tweets. Shari likes Tweetlater to stay plugged in.

In any event, keep it light, people! Find something to make the world laugh today, and share it with your fellow twits.

I wonder what this guy would post if he had a Twitter account? He probably does!

Photo Credit: yummyporky on flickr

Social media marketing is much like that, believe it or not. When you first start working on that social media muscle, you won’t see immediate results. That’s okay. The repetition, consistency, and diligence will pay off, just not right away.

Be Diligent

Diligence is what makes you do what you don’t necessarily feel like doing, just because you know you should. Don’t just attack Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn with random, reckless abandon. Rather, knowing you should be connecting socially, create a plan of attack. If you go into a gym and work out hard on every piece of equipment without knowing what you’re doing, should you expect results or injury?

Take some time to consider how you’re going to build this muscle. How are you going to attract the people you need in your arena? What will your message be? Are you going to offer information, inspiration, or network connections? Remember, this social media muscle will take time to develop. You’re probably going to make mistakes, but if you’re diligent about this, relationships are inevitable.

Practice Repetition

You probably wouldn’t notice any shape or form if you didn’t repeat an exercise several times. Same thing with responding to comments on your blog, and leaving comments on other blogs you read. This is an important muscle because it gives you an opportunity to leave a link or trackback to your site and blog. As your community sees your repeated involvement, you become known for your friendly interaction.

Be Consistent

Working out for a month and then sitting for a month will just be a waste of your time. That’s why lifestyle changes have to happen for true fitness. You may grow tired and want to stop, but just get back out there again.

Blog. Blog. Blog. It’s the new credibility muscle, and its built with consistency. This one takes your area of expertise, and shares it with a slowly built readership base. These people will inevitably be involved in a conversation, probably online, and say,”I know where to find the answer to that, I saw it just the other day on so-and-so’s blog! Here’s the link.” That link will take them to your blog, and connect them to your website.

Social media muscle building brings your customers to you. Time to work out?

Let’s skip the “should they be there” question and consider the FACT that journalists are already there. Does that worry you a little? Or open your mind to a few interesting possibilities?

I was made aware of this article via Friendfeed, an application that at first glance is overwhelming … a clear case of information overload. Ok, it was the same at second and third glance too. But thanks to Ed Dale of Thirty Day Challenge fame, I’m beginning to find my way around and finding that Friendfeed may have enormous potential as a market research and tracking tool, as well as be a convenient way to disseminate information.

Let’s face it, social media is rapidly changing the way we communicate with our market and opening new avenues for public relations. The traditional press release is still alive and well, but the way it’s distributed is changing. The information it contains is evolving. The smart small business owner will take note of these trends and consider the implications for his business.

Do you devote a portion of your week to learning about technologies, applications, or ideas that could improve how you share your message and market your business?

28% of small business owners have registered with at least one social networking site, according to a 2008 Warrillow & Co. survey. It also found that fast-growth companies were much more likely to participate in social networking than slower-growth companies. Could there be a correlation?

I’ve only recently begun to tap into Facebook. To be honest, my first impression was that it was a complete waste of time. After all, how seriously can you take an application where your “friends” throw sheep, send virtual drinks, plant virtual gardens, and newbies spam one another with bizarre videos and graffiti walls?

But with so much written about Facebook’s value to the business owner – and because I’ve been asked about it a few times, I decided to dig in and discover for myself if there was more to Facebook than met the eye. Is there a way to present a professional, yet casual profile and use this application to responsibly and enjoyably network with others? The answer is a resounding yes!

I’ve turned off the junk applications that allow me to be easily spammed or that I don’t care to associate with, and added applications that support causes I believe in. I don’t have it down to a science, but apparently nobody else does either. Facebook is a relaxed, casual, learn-as-you-go environment.

There’s far too much to cover about Facebook in one post, so stay tuned. In future posts we’re going to cover:

• Using Facebook responsibly

• Local networking with Facebook

• Setting up a business page

• Promoting your business or cause through groups and events

• Integrating Facebook – The KISS Principle

Are you already on Facebook, and if so, what are you gaining or contributing by being there? Do you use Facebook for business or personal use, or both?

Related Articles:

Event Marketing with Social Media

Social Networking: What’s In It For The Local Business?