Category: Public Relations

Traditional tools like print advertising and direct mail are great tools for a small business owner. However, they can cost significant amounts of money and be hit or miss with your target audience.

Many businesses have a local trading area where most of their customers come from or where you would like most of your customers to come from.

Are you using these techniques?

Twitter Search

You may have dipped your toe into the Twitter river. The flow may be amazing and hard to tackle. Change that paradigm by using Twitter Search. Use the “Advanced” search button. You can drill down to your local area and find Tweeters tweeting about topics relevant to your business. Then, you can engage them in real-time.

Improve Visibility

If you have a physical location, then traffic will pass you each business day. Are you alerting them to specials, new services, etc? You can draw them in with sandwich boards at the street. A banner hung on the building, a mascot or employee waving to passersby, search lights and cold-air balloons on your roof. Promote your social media links. ‘

Email List Only Specials

Invite those on your email list to receive a special discount, extra goods or services or a sample to drive them into your operation. Make sure you shape your social media links to prompt clicks.

Be A Good Corporate Citizen

If you serve food like pizza or ice cream, then you can donate a percentage of sales on specific days and times to go to a local charity or PTO. Those organizations all publicize the event and drive visitors to your location. The same technique works with a toy store where a share of sales is shared with the non-profit.

Create A List Of Influential Bloggers Or Tweeters In Your Area

Twitter search as described above, and a search on a major search engine will find help identity these folks. Ask them for a one-on-one meeting on the phone or in person. They might use your company as an example in a post or feature some of your practices as positive practices in tweets.

Location Based Services

Geo-location services and applications like Foursquare make going local easy. However, the customers of potential clients may need to be educated that these services exist and how to use them. The key is to focus the social media activity to be where the customers are, especially if you have multiple locations.

Filling out complete profiles is paramount. There can be specials only for those who check in using the LBS networks. Extra rewards are offered to those who check in the most, they are known as “Mayors”.

Location Specific Social Media Communities

Location-specific LinkedIn Groups or regional Facebook pages allow you to target customers within your desired geographic area.  Additionally, LinkedIn allows you to place a targeted advertisement

Meetup

Meetup’s purpose is group together people with shared interests within a geographic area.  You can start your own meet-up on a specific topic for less than $100 per year. Members who have interest in your topic will be notified of events and your group. Hosting meetings will show your company’s expertise. Members will gain insight into how your firm helps clients.

Look for Meetup groups in adjacent geographic and product spaces. Hold events jointly to expose the members to a larger audience.

Alternatively, instead of starting a Meetup, target groups that would be of interest to your prospects. The member profiles will have Facebook, Twitter and blog information. Contact them to engage, not pitch them. Look for spots where you can contribute to the Meetup such as sponsoring activities, providing door prizes, guest speaking or providing a meeting venue.

The Takeaway

Local marketing has endless possibilities. Don’t limit yourself to the old standards. Engage with social media to spread your message.

These are the ideas. Over to you. Please comment below.

1. What other local social media marketing techniques do you employ?
2. What has been your most successful social media strategy?
3. Has Social Media allowed you to expand your area where you draw customers?

If you would like to contact me, you may do so by visiting my LinkedIn page, following me on Twitter,  or e-mailing me at rcberman2 (at) yahoo (dot) com.