The biggest challenge for most small businesses owners is attracting and keeping customers without wasting time or money. You usually have small teams, sparse budgets and no one dedicated full time to social media engagement. But that does not mean you can’t become top-of-mind to your customers. Because prospects are increasingly likely to use their smart devices before they buy, you can use some of the same social tools and methods that corporations use. Here are some tips to get started.

Step 1: Understand Your Buyer

If you run a B2B company, your buyers might spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. But if you are a B2C company, your customers might be more active on Facebook. Know what your customers search for when they are ready to buy. 

Time saving tip: Talk to your customers or do a short survey. Take the conversations you are already having with your buyers and ask them another question or two while you have them engaged.

Step 2: Offer Helpful Tips That Pull in Prospects

Once you know what most matters to your customers, fill your website and blog with short, Q&A and situation-based tip articles using headlines that pull your content to the top of search results. Rather than your promotional language, write the words your buyers use. For starters, answer the questions your customers have told you they most frequently ask online, related to what you sell. You will know your tips are successful when they get shared and when prospects cite them when buying from you.

Time saving tip: Often the hardest part about blogging is coming up with a hot topic. Think back to the last three to five questions from customers.  Review questions that customers and prospects have sent you via email. Chances are for every customer who asked you a question, there are many more that have asked that question. Turn the answers into blog posts, with the customers’ questions as the titles for each post.

Step 3: Engage Prospective Buyers

Begin engaging with prospects online. Publish excerpts with links to your articles on social media. Follow social media channels for content that mentions terms that relate to your business. Jump into the conversation with your insights and links.

Time saving tip: While you want to respond to all questions about your specific company quickly, limit your social media participation. You can easily spend endless amounts of time on it, so the key here as a small business is to focus.

Step 4: Encourage Your Advocates

Praise and share the social comments from your customers. That will boost their credible visibility and yours. Encourage them to share their ideas by describing how and why they use your product. You know their true stories are more valuable than advertising. Help them share by telling them about relevant groups and other places on Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, Twitter.

Time saving tip: Incorporate messages that engage your advocates into your normal communications. When a great customer places a repeat order with you, respond with a note asking them to review or promote you. 

Each of these approaches leverage your strengths – what you know about your customers’ needs. They don’t cost money and can become a regular and small part of your workweek. Knowing you aren’t paying for advertising or PR is a great nudge to spur you to keep this weekly practice.

Kare Anderson

Kare Anderson, CEO of Say it Better, is an Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter who now writes for Forbes and Huffington Post and speaks about being frequently connected and widely quoted. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

 

Mike Volpe

Mike Volpe is Chief Marketing Officer at HubSpot, a marketing software company, where he leads the company's lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing.  Under Mike's leadership since 2007, HubSpot's marketing has won more than 30 awards, been featured in over 20 marketing and business books, generated over 1 million leads, and grown the company from 10 customers to over 8,000 customers and $50 million in revenue. 

 

Attend Dreamforce 2013 to learn more valuable tips from Kare Anderson and Mike Volpe in their session  'Make Your Small Business Top Of Mind In Your Market.' Reserve your conference pass NOW!