There is no equal to the local social media when it comes to connecting with people from your vicinity. And with the global social media to connect with people from around the world in a matter of seconds. But at times it is easy to forget those closer to home.
Social networks are actually a very powerful medium when you want to reach out to your local audience. If you are a small business with customers just down the road local social media can play a great role.
As a small business, it is quite necessary to establish yourself on social media platforms. Because the interaction is the only way when it comes to building up a supportive customer base.
Social media is all about communicating. And for your customers to be able to communicate with you, they should be able to find you easily.
Ways to Supercharge Your Local Social Media
Social media is a great tool for driving your local business. So it is advisable for small businesses to establish their presence on Local Social Media.
Check out the following ways in which your business can supercharge local social media. Supercharging the local social media will help you maximize your reach and derive amazing benefits from it:
Foursquare
In the world of social networks, Foursquare often gets left behind and it is also not very popular in India.
But nowadays it is picking up pace.
So, if you have a business made from brick and mortar with customers visiting you on a daily basis, then it is not something to miss out on.
Register your business on Foursquare.com. Verify both your phone number and address using the code provided. You will receive a pin number in the post to verify your address.
Foursquare really is the leader when it comes to location networks. It has 20 million users simply looking for places to check into places they have visited.
The advantage of this is that their check-in can be shared with friends, fans, and followers on a range of different networks including Twitter and Facebook.
This platform can be enormously influential. When a user’s friend see where they are and what they are doing, it could encourage them to go to the same places.
You can even engage with users who have checked into your location previously or are nearby. This is very influential if you have any special deals or discounts running. This could tempt people to come back to your business location or your store.
Facebook Pages
Facebook is the biggest social network in the world, so having your business on Facebook Places is a no-brainer.
With the growing use of tablets and mobiles, users can check in on Facebook wherever they are to show their friends and family what they are doing.
Similarly like Foursquare, businesses can set up their page on Facebook with all their contact details and address.
Customers can then leave up to a five-star review on the page. These reviews are visible to anyone who visits the page as well as the friends and family of those who left the review.
Reviews provide a great avenue for reliable engagement on the page. Businesses can thank customers for any positive feedback given and quickly respond to negative comments. This keeps your customers engaged, build trust in you, and remain loyal to your brand.
Another feature of Facebook is Graph search. It was introduced a few years back and allows users to search for keywords in posts, status updates, and comments. Meaning any mention of your business will come up in the search results. And it also allows the real-time conversation around local businesses and interests.
Twitter Trends
Although Twitter is a more global online platform, there are some features that make it a great network for local businesses to get involved with and share content for the benefit of their business.
Twitter has a trending topics section, which lets you choose your own city, so you can see what people in your area are tweeting about.
This means you can see what topics are popular and create content around them.
You can then engage with people around these topics. And also offer any advice or answer questions if they are related to your industry.
This way you can get in touch with a lot of people who are interested in your business or the products or services you offer.
You can also use the Twitter search function to find keywords that may apply to you, for example, “Food Joint” or use the advanced Twitter search function to search keywords by location.
Another more recent trend on Twitter that local businesses can take advantage of is the location hashtags.
More and more places are using a certain time of the day or week to tweet about their businesses and connect with local people in the area.
#digitoly is very popular and the trend seems to be spreading around the country with other areas such as #Delhi.
Google Maps
Though google maps is not a social media platform, it is really a good place to invest your time and effort in.
Especially people having offline businesses like shops and stores and make great use of Google Maps by pinning their location on the map for the convenience of the users to locate them.
Also, they can add pictures of their store, inside of the store, they can also use the 360° panoramic shoot of their store to give their customers a virtual tour of their store.
Google My Business
If you have a physical store and you want to tell your customers the opening and closing time of your store, Google My Business is the best option you should go for.
Google My Business is also great for displaying more information like contact number, email address, physical address, direction to your store, the website address of your store if any, reviews people want to give about your business, offers you want to promote for your business can all be done from Google My Business.
Conclusion
Local social media marketing is an incredible tool for small businesses and provides a great opportunity for content promotion and engagement within a local market.
It gives you ample opportunities to create relationships on a personal level with potential customers. While you can also maintain a good relationship with existing customers with this platform.
Using the above platforms, your business can connect directly with people that live near you, while responding to any customer needs quickly and efficiently.
They also provide you an increased level of online visibility with every passing day.
If you need help in supercharging your social media and make the best use of social media for your business do get in touch with us using the contact form below:
