Social Media Marketing How-to Guides for Small Business
How-to guides for small businesses about social media marketing: how to do it; what works and what doesn't; who you can hire to help and what you can do yourself. Get started with Social Media How-to Guide
Most Popular Social Media Marketing How-to Guides
Focus on 
the "big 4" for social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the newcomer Google+1.
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NEW: Google Plus Business Pages - learn about the pros, cons and some Red Flags for setting up a Google Business Page
* Photo explaination of social media by Doug Ray and posted on Facebook
Create Brand Fans who share positive word-of-mouth online and offline
More Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business
Social media use by small business
A survey done by Hiscox of US small business leaders on their social media usage found that only 12% of businesses described social media promotion as a must and nearly 50% of respondents aren’t using social media at all.
The findings included:
47% of respondents indicated they did not use social media for business purposes at all. For those that did use social media for their business:
19% are using Facebook
15% are using LinkedIn
4% are using Twitter
The businesses using social media also ranked the most important channels they used to grow and expand their business:
MarketingZone Blog Post: Has Social Media Become Like Karaoke?
From a business owner about social media..."How about the biggest lie of them all... that social media is a "free way to advertise your company." While the tools themselves are free (at least for now), using social media to promote your company takes time and time is money. Just talk to an attorney who bills $250 an hour for her time and ask her to take 20 minutes of her day to spend on social media... that 20 minutes amounts to $21,000 a year in billable time. This might be taking it to the extreme, but I've had to spend thousands of dollars on ghost-writing and other social media optimization services to help promote my company. It's definitely NOT free, just a new way to spend your advertising dollars and efforts."
Planning for Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is "free" but it requires an investment of your time.
- Viral Marketing - Learn how to get other people to become your free sales force, sharing positive word of mouth with others.
From our experience: there's a lot of media coverage about social media but very little data about whether it's a good return on your time. Here's our list of the twelve most important things to do in marketing for the best return on your time and money. Small Business Marketing
Other Social Media Marketing
- Marketing on Foursquare
- Blogs and Blogging
- Article marketing
- Content marketing
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Promoting Content
- Market yourself on Slideshare
- Question and answer sites
- Learn about widgets
Coupon and Deal-a-Day Sites
Social Media Reputation Management
How to handle negative comments on Facebook, Blogs and TwitterResearching marketing products or services to buy?
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Top Marketing Suppliers
- Reviews are written and continuously updated by editors.
- We don't accept advertising and we don't participate in affiliate deals so our subscribers can rely on us for credible, honest reviews.
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How to Find, Select and Pay Agencies and Freelancers
- Best Sources to Find Marketing Freelancers to Hire
Successful small businesses want what big companies have: marketing experts who find and filter the best actionable information on marketing costs, suppliers and how to do marketing better, faster and less expensively.
- Advertising
- Blogs & Blogging
- Branding
- Brochures
- Budgeting for marketing
- Business cards
- Business marketing
- Collect customer information
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Content Marketing
- CRM (customer relationship marketing)
- Database for marketing
- Direct mail marketing
- Email marketing
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Facebook marketing
- Fundraising and non-profit marketing
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Google tools
- Graphic design for marketing
- Increase sales (get customers, cross selling, upselling...)
- Internet online marketing
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LinkedIn Marketing
- Mailing lists
- Market research
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Marketing ideas & examples
- Marketing plans
- Marketing strategies
- Marketing effectiveness & ROI
- Merchandising and retailing
- Mobile marketing
- Newsletters
- Packaging design
- Positioning
- Printing business cards, flyers...
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Product marketing
- Promotions for marketing
- PR/Public relations
- Seasonal marketing ideas
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- SEM (search engine marketing)
- Social media marketing
- Small business marketing
- Starting a new business
- Targeting
- Trade shows and events
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Twitter for business
- Video marketing
- Viral and word of mouth marketing
- Websites
- Working with agencies & freelancers
- Writing for marketing
How-to Guides
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