About the Mobile Chamber
The Mobile Chamber is a private business organization with more than 1,700 members and the economic developer for the City of Mobile and Mobile County. The Mobile Chamber’s focus is to provide members with networking, marketing and professional development opportunities, expand jobs in the area, develop the local workforce, advocate legislative priorities and offer resources to help small businesses grow. Additional information is on the Chamber’s website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Four Ways to Tackle the Digital Media Conundrum
The Business View – May 2018 / Small Business Corner
Social media is a critical marketing strategy, especially for a large group of small businesses looking to engage their customers. For some, it can be intimidating to the point that many business owners don’t take advantage of the affordability it offers to reach a wide audience.
Among the social media options are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn. Studying posts on each platform can help you decide what’s right for your business. Scheduling tools make posting less time consuming for business owners and their employees who wear many hats.
Creating a post isn’t the end, either. You must continue to engage with your audience or they lose interest. This can be the most daunting part of social media. But with a little thought and planning, you can ease the burden and become a social media hit.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
Don’t re-invent the wheel. Borrow themes and topics from others you follow and adopt them for your business. Think about the frequently asked questions and form content around them. This can position you as proactive and an expert in your field.
- There is an old-school, word-of-mouth marketing strategy called referral marketing.
Before social media, people actually went to “TIPS”-type meetings to network and source referrals in a relatively structured fashion. Social media can be used in much the same way. Identify companies in industries that complement yours – they serve the same target customers, but don’t compete with your company.
Share their relevant content. It’s an easy way to stay in front of your followers, share valuable information and maybe best of all, encourage those companies to reciprocate and share your posts with their followers.
- A picture is worth a thousand words.
Show the world your team in action by sharing casual photos. Your followers will enjoy meeting the “faces behind the names,” and get an idea of your work and the company’s culture and personality.
- Mobile Area Chamber members should check out the exclusive member benefit Save Local Now to create, manage and analyze their very own digital marketing campaigns.
Bundled together on a single platform, Save Local Now includes live business listings, deal and event publishing, email marketing, iPhone and Android apps, social media sharing, SEO and real-time analytics. For consumers, Save Local Now (savelocalnow.com) is a website and app that gives people access to exclusive deals, events, and savings where they shop, eat and play.
Click here to read The Business View – May 2018
For small business help, visit www.mobilechamber.com/small-business
Additional information is on the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce’s website at www.mobilechamber.com, on Facebook at @MobileChamber and Twitter at @MobileChamber.