12 Easy Ways to Use Social Media for Inbound Marketing

I have blogged before about how much I love Inc. Magazine.  Not only is their magazine packed with valuable and useful information for entrepreneurs and small business owners, their website is, too.  Best of all: everything is well-written in an accessible, friendly, and encouraging tone of voice. 

.tomate d'epingles.'s/Flickr

On my birthday in January, they published 30 Tips for Using Social Media in Your Business on their website.  It was a great, totally unintentional gift on their part, and it has been a wonderful source of inspiration for me.  Sometimes I open up Twitter and Facebook and just sit there, trying to think of something useful or witty or funny to post.  Being able to refer to the things other business owners have done to drive business and market themselves through social media is much easier! 

I am not going to regurgitate what the author, April Joyner, wrote.  Some of it didn’t strike me as easy to do, and some of it was “don’t do this!” What follows are my favorite ideas.

1. Sneak peeks.  Whether you provide a service or product—or both—offer a behind the scenes look at, or preview of, whatever it is you’re working on.
2. Post videos.  Use videos to quickly demonstrate what your company does.  People like to watch well-made, funny videos, and they love to share them (just look at the success of YouTube!).
3. Interact.  This really goes without saying, but it is worth repeating.  Always respond to comments on your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn page, etc. 
4. Promotions.  Offer coupons and other special promotions through social media only.  Just make sure they are easily redeemed!  You can also offer coupons through Groupon or, in certain cities, Living Social.
5. Read what they’re saying.  Search your company’s name on Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp to see what people are saying about you—and join the conversation.
6. Broadcast your location.  If your business is mobile (dog groomer, street performer, food truck), use Twitter, Facebook, and/or Foursquare to update your location so customers can find you.  
7. Search for customers.  By conducting keyword searches on Twitter that are related to your business, you can reply to people who have posted them—and hopefully snag some new customers.
8. Target your online ads.  Facebook lets you to target your ads based on specific information in users’ profiles.
9. Customer forums.  Add a customer forum to your website or social network so customers can interact with each other.  Great way to build a community for both your business and industry!
10. Tap evangelists.  Ask your top customers to spread the word about your company as guest bloggers, or ask them to make a short (2-3 minutes, tops) video of why they like your company’s product or service so much, which both of you can share. 
11. Follow your industry.  Read blogs related to your industry and join industry groups on Facebook and LinkedIn—and post comments!
12. Help others.  Scan LinkedIn’s Answers for questions relating to your industry.  Spend an hour or so a week answering them, and you may very well find new customers. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 2:00 pm and is filed under small business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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