Small town businesses need social media, despite a few claims to the contrary. Almost every small town business can benefit from a smart, customer-focused and community-serving approach online. Why? Because local customers are actively using social networks like Facebook. Because visitors to town are using their smart phones and tablets to access the internet from…
Business listing sites are like theyellow pages: lots of choices,and always changing. My friend Allison Aldrige-Saur asked for a list of online places to register a business. She had Yelp, Google Places and several others, but was not finding a list. Here’s why there is no list: it changes all the time. Business listing sites…
By Jon Swanson “What key personal and business lessons have you learned about social media in 2011?” Social Media Breakfasts are held in manydifferent cities. What if we held one in thecomment box below? Photo by Rick Mahn. That’s how Kevin Mullett started the most recent meeting of the Social Media Breakfast-Fort Wayne. There were…
When I talked to regular everyday tourism professionals and volunteers and business people at the Nebraska travel conference about social media, several said this was the best piece of advice I gave them: Talk less about you, and more about them. It’s hardly revolutionary. You’ve probably heard it before. You might even have said it…
When I recently co-hosted an online chat with Jim Kukral for NFIB, one attendee asked about how to get more people to come through the doors during the holiday season. It’s a great question and I have some tips that can help. Want more people to come throughthe doors? Dress up your external spaceand put…
You are not your target market: You know too much. You’re pretty smart. You’ve been around your industry or subject area for several years, maybe longer. You have studied, learned, tried, failed, learned some more, succeeded, and learned some more. In short, you are no longer the same as your customers. Now, this is good…
You are not your target market: What you like doesn’t equate into what customers like. I don’t like country music. I don’t like pop up newsletter subscription boxes. I don’t even like the idea of whipped cream flavored vodka. None of that should influence my marketing. What should? My customers. What do my customers like? What music…
Melanie Grace Guthrey asked, You speak a lot about finding the terms people search online in relation to our town/business. Is there a particular way or site you recommend for doing this research? It’s a great question. How can we know what words and phrases people search that lead them to our site? The answer is…
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