Going Local On Facebook
Facebook is one of the most powerful social media tools online. Of course, it’s also the most trafficked website online so it makes sense that any business would want to have a presence there. But what about local business? Can Facebook benefit businesses with a local presence that may not want to market themselves internationally? Absolutely. Here’s how.
- Facebook Places allows you to edit community pages that are local to you. For instance, if you live in Boston, Massachusetts, use the Facebook search feature to find the Boston, Massachusetts community page. Anyone can edit that page. Once you make an edit, future editors who are also friends of yours will see that you’ve made changes to that community page.
- Friends Lists allow you to create lists of your friends who may have something in common, such as friends who live in the same geographic area. You can post updates that only those friends see.
- Local Business Listings, like Facebook Places, are community pages that anyone can edit, except that they are for businesses. Yours could very well be there, created by Facebook. All you have to do is click to edit the page and monitor what others write when they edit. You want to be sure no false information about your business is published.
- Create your own Facebook page for your local business.
- Post events and promote them through Facebook Events.
Facebook is a powerful way to promote your business online to people you may already know or that you meet in the process of doing business in your local area.
The Limitation Of Social Media Marketing And Local Business
Does social media marketing have a limitation when it comes to local business? There must surely come a time when you have reached out to almost everyone in your demographic market. While I doubt there are that many businesses that could claim to have touched every possible customer in their region, there does come a time when your growth in followers drops to a trickle.
This is not necessarily a negative to your business although I am sure you could broaden your demographic base if you wanted to. For small businesses servicing a small geographic region, that limitation in follower numbers can actually work to your advantage. It’s much easier to become more social with a thousand followers, for example, than it is to ten thousand.
In that environment, it can be easier to convert those followers into customers (if they are not already). If your geographic base is relatively small, then there is a good chance that most of your followers know each other – and most likely you as well. This makes the social process easier and can often open the marketing angle to a more direct approach.
There is a downside to having a relatively small tightly knit community of followers – if you upset one of the followers, it will soon spread throughout the whole community. However, as in offline communities, it can be easier to seek forgiveness as well.
For most businesses, the scenario of having a tight community of followers is only a dream – yet in a way, that is what we should all be aiming for. Perhaps the mistake we are making with social media marketing is that it is too business oriented when it should be community oriented! Social media marketing may have limitations when it comes to local businesses – but that may be a good thing, not a negative.
A Competitive Intelligence Tool You Might Have Overlooked
Competitive intelligence is something you can never overestimate the importance of and you should never underestimate it as an information gathering resource. One resource that you should add to your arsenal of information gathering about your competition is WhitePages.com.
Off line, the White Pages has always been a great source of information about phone numbers for local business. Online, WhitePages.com has traditionally just been a resource that pointed you to other places on the Web. Not any more.
WhitePages.com now allows you to find national chains in your local neighborhood. This is a great competitive intelligence tool – and it’s free. Look for the Store Locator feature on the front page and start looking for your competition. You can find out just where their chain stores are located all around the country.
Sometimes, competitive intelligence is really simple.
Stop The Google Local Hijacking
There is a florist in New Zealand performing community penance for hijacking the Google Local listings of her competitors. I rather think she should get jail time, but that’s an aside.
If you have a local small business and you want to start marketing your business online but don’t know where to start, Google Local is the perfect place. You don’t even need a website. But if you don’t claim your business on Google Local then someone else just may do it for you and take any traffic or business that you might have received had you done it.
While this is considered criminal, consider that it could happen from someone in another country hijacking your business listing. If that happens then you may never see justice.
It’s best to prevent it from happening before you see your business in a compromised situation. Claim your business on Google Local, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.com. It’s free and it will save you a ton of headaches.
Google Local Changes Name To Google Places
Yesterday Google announced that it was changing the name of Google Local to Google Places. If you’re interested in why Google doesn’t have a unique domain name – yet – for Google Places, you can read about that at Search Marketing Standard. It’s a good read.
But whether you think Google screwed up or hit a home run, this is an important step for all of us, especially local business. Google says that one in five searches are local so if you have a local business then you need to claim your business at Google Places. Don’t wait.
Here are some of the new features Google has added to Google Places:
- Claim your own service area and hide your address
- For select cities, you can add tags to your listing for $25
- Add photos
- Get custom QR codes
- Join the Favorite Places program
- Add real-time updates
- Track your progress with your own personalized dashboard
Seriously, this looks like a good deal to me. Could Google have rolled it out in a more strategic manner? Yes. But that they’ve done this and done it now says a lot about how serious Google is about local search marketing. I chalk it up as a plus.
Why Yellowbook Deserves A Hat Tip
Yellowbook is a staple of local business advertising. First started as a print directory in 1930 to serve Long Island, New York, Yellowbook has become a major publishing company that now serves 48 states. It is one of America’s most important publishing companies.
In recent years, however, Yellowbook has become more than a print directory. It is an online publishing powerhouse that now serves every community in the U.S. with directory services. If you want to find a particular type of business anywhere in the U.S., Yellowbook is the place to go.
But things have just got better. Yellowbook now has an iPad app. That means that the millions of early adopters who have purchased an iPad can now find any business they want through Yellowbook. Well, they can find any business listed. Are you listed? If not, the iPad is the perfect reason to list your business at Yellowbook. This is local Internet marketing at its best.
Favorite Places As Reputation Management
Google’s got a new way for local small businesses to engage in reputation management. It’s called Favorite Places. It seems like a simple program, starting with 100,000 local U.S. businesses with a bar code in their window. Yes, I know, sounds hokie, but that’s what it is.
The bar code is intended as a way for mobile phone users to scan and find out more about the business. What kind of information? You know, reviews, history, menus, etc.
Google is inviting other local businesses to participate by nominating themselves as a Favorite Place. Well, you join the Google Local Business Center, which you should have done already anyway. Then, if you get a lot of people searching for you at Google, you’ll get your own decal.
Apart from the silliness, it can be another reputation enhancer for the right businesses. But I’m wondering how many people will actually use the decals with their mobile phones?