Introduction to Social Media for the Small Business Owner

Hey all, I'm trying a new screen capture - it's not bad.  It's called Snag-It.  I think I had a couple of snags to it but it's probably my end, so I'm going to work on that.  If it works out I may purchase it to make more videos for you to enjoy. :)

In the meantime-I made this video for you to learn about social media for small business.

Interview: Marketing tips for Small Business start up

An interview with a small business owner:

I went out to talk to small business owners to find out how they got their first customers.  Meet Brigitta White, a dance movement and yoga teacher.  Within one year, she was able to make a profit.  I filmed these interviews to help small business owners to be inspire to get new ideas for their business.  You can listen to this in the background.  She has some great ideas.

Twitter: a tutorial

I'm part of a social media networking group on facebook (Potomac Valley Social Media group if you are interested).  Some of them are perplex to twitter as I was.  I made this video to introduce them and get them started on twitter.  I thought I'd share to the world.

Note:  This is the basics of how I use twitter.  Once you start to feel comfortable with it then you can plan your own strategy.

Retail Biz owner: Kim Hutchings

I started a first customers series a bit back, to find out how business owners got their business started.

Meet Boutique store-front co-owner: Kim Hutchings as she talks about what it takes to start up.  Her store broke even in 6 months.  This is part 1 of a 4 part series on how she and her business partner got started.  (click here to see the whole interview)

You can visit Kim's online store at: http://www.shopmisguidedangels.com/

Blogspot vs. Wordpress vs. Your own webpage

I've been vlogging for a year now and decided to expand into blogging.  I took time to look at different blogging platforms to decided where to put my blogs.  I've tried each of the primary platforms, wordpress, blogger and my own website.  After talking with a social media friend of mine, I think I came up with the one that fits my needs.  Here's a list that helped me with my decision.

Note:  I do not claim to be an expert in these platforms.  I just merely reviewed them over the past year to see which one fits my needs.  I may be unaware that a platform actually performed the capabilities that I said was lacking.  I feel in those cases that it was because it was not intuitive, in which case it would be on my cons list anyway.  My choice, Blogger, came from the simplicity of the platform.

Wordpress:

Pros:

• Seems to be the industry standard in blogging
• Allows for lots of customization 
• You can use it on your website (depending on whether you use wordpress.org or .com)
• You have a great deal of control over the look and feel of the website
• You can add a checkout
• Free

Cons:

• Complicated to use
• Analytics is not simple
• I got lots of emails on updates to the site, became a bit overwhelming.  I really don't want to think about it
• wordpress.com does not allow ads, .org is a does but you need your own site
• I was spammed like crazy

Your Own Website:

Pros:

• You have control, all updates and changes are made by you, not a third party
• Your name is in the title, people can find you
• You can add a checkout
• You look professional
• Can accept ads from various sources

Cons:

• The only one you have to pay for, but if you look around it does not have to be expensive
• Need to find analytic elsewhere
• Set up and revisions can be complicated and a long process.  Note: I used weebly to save some time with creating my site however once entangled with weebly, it seems difficult to untangle from it)
• setup can be costly

Blogger

This was my ultimate choice, primarily because the pros far outweighed the cons for my situation.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Allows custom html
• Can put in your own ads
• set up for subscribers is easy and you can do it in various forms
• Free
• Easy analytics
• Easy access to google adsense and network adsense through google
• When you have trouble or don't have the time to look for advertisers, google adsense is really really easy to use on blogspot

Cons:

• Google owns the site and can make changes to it at will, whether you like it or not.
• It is not looked upon as professional

I choose blogger because in the end, I'm a mom, whose priority is being a mom.  My job becomes posting and finding readers.  Blogger will find the advertisers for me.  With that said, if I wish to take control of selling adverts, blogger gives me this option.  I suppose in a sense, choosing a blogging platform was a lifestyle choice.

Are you on Google+?

I'm a blogger, vlogger and soon to be etsy store owner.  I know a lot about social media so I have taken on some social media consulting for businesses.  Some of my consulting friends (not all) believe google+ is the future.  They have been saying this for a year now.  I shake my head as to their understanding because they do not have any reasons to support this idea. They will say being on g+ will help with your SEO on the google search engine but this is a reason for businesses and marketers to be on g+.  To go where the people are, to reach the ultimate end user - you're not going to find it on google+ (g+).

It is my belief that g+ is late in the game.  Most people are on facebook.  You have your businesses and your PR folks that are on g+ but your average jo and jane schom is not.  I'm not saying that Google+ is not a place to join. If you own a business you should be putting your name on every network just to reserve the name.  And I love g+'s google hangouts and I have used it often.  I find it more user friendly then skype. But getting your average house wife or house husband with three kids and a full time job to use google+ when they are on facebook is a mystery.

I also find g+ a bit invasive.  When I started to put my friends in circles, I didn't know that g+ was going to send out mass spam e-mails to the friends who were not on g+.  I was a little embarrassed so now I make sure that I only put them in a circle when I know they are on g+.

With all that said, I am still attempting to learn google+.  If anything my business to business clients might appreciate it.

I would love to hear what you have to say, I started a community on google+ called social media networking and we're discussing .... How do you use google+?  I'm hoping I will understand what my other social media pals see.

How do you use google+?:
http://bit.ly/WoDnkt