Retail Visioning by Christine Moynihan

Excerpted from an article by Christine Moynihan, Retail Visioning

first published January 31, 2012

Facebook has 800,000,000 users, an increasingly robust search engine and once you get the lingo down it is one of the easiest forms of social media for small businesses to use.   Bottom line — if you don’t make the effort to get up on the social media playing field you may find yourself out of the game. 

Retailers, restaurateurs and storefront small business owners everywhere know that one of the best kinds of advertising is “positive word of mouth” and Facebook is the new way that good word gets around.  56% of consumers are likely to recommend a business to their friends once they “like” it.   

I hope you have a website up and are seriously thinking about not just having but using a Facebook page for your small business, too.  Check outhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to get started.  Then, consider these Facebook Best Practices as you learn the language and get out on that social media playing field. 

1)      Social plug ins.  Be sure your website has that little Facebook icon to direct customers to your Facebook page and give them the chance to “Like” you right then and there.   You will also want to be sure your Facebook page has a link to your website.  While both are Internet tools, they have different jobs to do!

2)      Post frequently.  If possible every day.  Your community might miss a great message from you if their activity is robust and you do not show up on a news feed!

3)      Engage…don’t sell.  Ask questions.  Start conversations.  Provide links to articles your fans might want to share.  Think about having a deeper relationship with this audience and you will enhance your lists and sell more over time.

4)      Make everyone who visits feel special.   Tease promotions and let everyone who comes to your Facebook page feel like they are VIPs.   Now and then, reward these good friends.

5)      Stay with it!  As tough as it is to add something new to your already full plate, make a commitment to stay with it.  You will be rewarded, too!

*****

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Merchant advice from "Retail Visioning"

FIRST…a website.

written December 2011

tags: Facebook, SEO, Social Media, Twitter, Website

by ChristineMoynihan

 

I am all for Social Media.  I love Facebook and Twitter. But first you need a good looking and search engine optimized (SEO) website.  Too many retailers have jumped over the need to have a good website and headed straight to a Facebook page or Twitter account.  For ease? For cost?  Whatever the reason, if YOU skipped this step I would encourage you to rethink the value of a website.   Research shows that the website is where it all begins!

Social media certainly appears instantly valuable to small businesses like retail stores because it is FREE and because you control it, pushing offers out to “followers” or “friends” when it suits YOU.   Social media does help build loyalty – a desirable yet elusive characteristic of customers these days – but it does not reach NEW customers.   Recent research shows that in early 2011 social media accounted for only 1% of the information people got about local businesses.  If you include restaurants, nightclubs and bars that increased to 3% but that is still fairly insignificant.   For more information you can read an article about this athttp://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/12/research-says-social-media-is-not-the-place-people-get-local-business-data.html

So where do they get information?   Search engines.  Google, Yahoo, Foursquare, etc. are STILL the places people go to find what they want.  And how do YOU get found through these search engines?  With a website that understands and makes good use of the words customers will search for!   There are other website characteristics that will also move your site up in Google or Yahoo rankings.   Some of those include how long you have had your website up, how rich the content is (with images, videos, etc.) and how many links there are to your site (even a link to Mapquest for directions to your store will help!) – but start thinking about what customers might be looking for and be sure those KEYWORDS will direct people to your site.  The more specific you are the higher the likelihood will be that the “searcher” will convert and become a customer.   For example from weak to strong:

Apparel…Women’s Apparel…Women’s Large-sized Apparel…Women’s Large-sized Apparel Newton, MA

I would encourage you to pay attention to what social media tools might work best for you and learn about how you could link a Facebook page or Twitter account to your website and make offers to those customers who DO find you.    But check out your own website for good quality SEO and help them find you FIRST!  For more information about keywords talk to your web developer or check out www.wordtracker.com or www.wordstream.com *

*Any suggestions to investigate resources for more information should not be construed as an endorsement of those sites, publications or products by either Christine Moynihan or RetailVisioning.