Building your online business profile is one of the most important things you can do to generate sustainable and cost effective growth now and in the future.

We understand at Soup that many independent businesses in New Zealand are time poor, with minimal marketing budget. Therefore, although we would recommend building out your complete online profile correctly and across multiple channels. Below are the top three places (based on our experience and the results we see) your business should be found.

If your businesses are; not in the below list, not controlled/claimed by you, or do not contain sufficient/optmised content then either get onto it straight away or drop us a line and we can help you out.

1. Google Places/Maps - The most flexible, transparent, progressive and results driven business directories platform in the world that is putting your business at the forefront of “first search”.  Google are for ever evolving the way they bring in local businesses into their search engine result pages (SERPs).
2. Facebook Page – Facebook pages for business is about connecting your business to the largest social network in the world, providing a common platform to communicate and engage with consumers in real time, and drive new leads.   If you can bring the traffic to your site then go where the traffic is.  The only thing is remember to manage your time appropriately when it comes to social media and understand your ROI.
3. ZoomIn.co.nz – This one might seem a little left field or unknown for a lot of businesses and if Finda’s data was not already being leveraged in Google Maps then it would have been in this number 3 position (Finda has a solid self service platform and has it’s structure deeply entrenched in the virtues of SEO or simply put it ranks very well in Google).  Yes ZoomIn has not seen any real development on it for quite some time and has a relatively basic interface for both businesses and users. But it ranks very well in search engine result pages and that is key for generating leads.

If you would like to discuss getting your business online or improving your online profile across different business and social directories then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

What's the priority for your business?

So you are trying to grow your business online and have ventured into the realms of social media.  But what should your priority be? What social media application should be the number one priority for your business and get you the most returns?

In this post I’m not going to discuss the pro’s and con’s of each offering with regards to its SEO benefits in the ever changing realms of real time search. I’m looking to explore what platform delivers the most return on investment (mainly an SME’s time), the most bang for your buck!

In some respects this should be a simple answer, Facebook.  Currently it has far greater flexibility for promoting your business and generally speaking average users, the people you want business from, don’t get twitter.  Case in point, I was seeing one of my clients the other day and began discussing thier social media options.  I had mentioned twitter to them a couple of weeks earlier (received blank looks) and thought I would leave it with them to quiz their clients about this new real-time communication tool.  The feedback was not great for twitter because most of their loyal clients (who are within twitter’s demographic) said they never used twitter and did not either understand or see the point.  This is not helped by the claims that 40% of tweets are mere babble.

However I do enjoy twitter, I truly do. I have learnt many a useful fact throughout my day and even connected with some very forward thinking SMEs.  But I can’t help and think that a lot of the people I’m communicating with and actively using it are on it for the same reason I am, to eventually generate leads through providing relevant business information i.e. not constantly spamming people with useless narcissistic facts like; “I’m eating a sandwich”, “I’m looking outside, its raining”.  I want to believe twitter has broken through into mainstream New Zealand and there are a plethora of active users out there consuming my advice and enjoying what small bits of my own personality I include in each 140 character post.  Or maybe the cold hard truth at the moment is that I’m communicating with the wrong crowd, making the same mistake many media folk do in forgetting about their consumers, their target audience in light of new “gadgets”.    Twitter does not suit every business out there at the moment however Facebook has that broader appeal, the broader knowledge of the product with everyday users.

Facebook obviously see the value in Twitter though and have made a move to go up against Twitter’s very premise it took from Facebook.  Its called Facebook Lite and provides the cut down version of Facebook.  Will this succeed?  I hazard a guess Facebook don’t really mind as they are very much ahead of the game in all respects, heck Twitter might have even done them a favour. Pushing  them to get out of their plush leather chairs and move social media innovation up a notch!

Does geography and general maturity of the New Zealand digital market play a part in the uptake and usability of Twitter? I think it does and to be honest in three years time when the market matures maybe this post could be rendered useless, stuck in the time capsule that is cyberspace.  I’m not advocating that small businesses don’t dabble in Twitter. NO. I would encourage setting up a twitter account as it does have many uses outside of simply posting “what you are doing” it can help with:

• Networking
• Real time feedback on whats being said about your business
• Real time relevant information from sources you choose
• Promote products, services, enhancements (if your target market is indeed on Twitter)
• Link creation

But and this is a big BUT, understand there are only so many hours in a day for a small to medium business owner and unless Facebook or Twitter invent a time machine or you can afford a small army of social media monkeys.  Then you need to concentrate your limited time on the social media application that will generate the most results.  At this moment in time in New Zealand, its Facebook.

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Twitter is a great tool that can help get your business move into the world of online and real time.  However it’s not all sunshine and lolly pops when entering into the world of Twitter.  There are a few things as a small to medium business user that you should be aware of.

For the time being I’m going to forget the do’s and really concentrate on the don’ts of using twitter:

• If you do get some negative feedback (which inevitably you will) do not react emotively.  Remove your personal feelings from the comment, be patient and reply in a professional manner.  You need to mitigate as much negative PR as possible so take your time and respond accordingly as you never know where it could go or who could see it.

• I mentioned it in my last post about twitter and its a bit of a tricky one but you have to be careful not to spam people with loads of offers or rss feeds.  You should be informative, personable and provide offers only when its really necessary.

• Don’t tweet anything you would not want to be quoted on in the media.  Remember Twitter is a public site with millions of users and potential customers.

• Don’t tweet anything about your clients unless its been explicitly agreed.  You may think you are doing them a favour but this could get you into trouble.

• Do not lie, it’s simple.  If you cannot back up your claims, offers or experience then do not tweet about.  Trust is important in every facet of your business.

• Do not try and follow hundreds if not thousands of people in the vain attempt to attract people to your tweets. You want quality not quantity so try and keep that balance in the people that you follow and who follow you.  For instance Soup follows business_govtNZ because we are interested in what they have to say with regards to small and medium businesses.

• This relates to point 2 but don’t be all about your business or “me,me,me”. Tweet information that you think your followers might find useful or informative and could stimulate a conversation….that’s what its all about.

• Don’t ignore people’s replies. They took the time to reply to you so make the effort to reply to them even if it is just to say “thanks”.

What is twitter?

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to answer the question, “What are you doing” by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your followers.

Find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

So with that brief intro onto some tips for SME’s using twitter:

• Always check the type of people who are following you on twitter. There are numerous people/organisations who set-up fake accounts that link to malicious or “unsavory” sites.  Look for things like; they are following 1,000 people but only have 20 followers and just 3 updates. If they are undesirable and you do not want them following you then take the next steps:

Click on the block link in your follow alert email highlighted below by the red box:

twitter email notification.

Once you have logged-in and it’s taken you to their page, select the option “Okay, I still want to block this person” highlighted in Red below.

Block Twitter follower

• Only follow people who you are interested in, such as; competitors, clients, related businesses/services, authorities in your business field, and other’s that can provide you with a business benefit.  As above do not follow someone who has started to follow you just for the sake of it.  Remember its quality not quantity you need to make the most of twitter and other followers will respect this.

• Post regular updates on your twitter page (1 to 3 a day) although keep it within reason so you are not spending more time posting tweets, checking tweets etc and less on following up real leads.

• # – place a hash tag next to keywords which will allow you and other users to search on later and potentially attract people to your tweets e.g. #hairdresser, #menu. See below how we use it at Soup Digital:

Twitter # tag example

• @ – this is used to respond to another twitter user, for example see below how we use it at Soup Digital:

twitter @ example

• Remember to check your “@soupdigital” replies to check who is mentioning you in tweets, replying to you and potentially want you to reply. See below highlighted in Red:

Check @ messages

• If you have a personal message you need to send to a fellow twitter user then send them a direct message.

• Be personable, and relate to your followers for example:
  • Send out offers in moderation rather than “spamming” users with your latest offers 20 times a day or letting an rss feed do the posting work for you (a sure fire way to lose followers).
  • Post things that are informative/helpful and are related to your business e.g. top 3 tips for saving money when building a house (remember you only have 140 characters to work with so be creative)
• As you only have 140 Characters to play with, try shortening url’s you are posting.  Simply go to http://tinyurl.com/ enter your url in to the box and click make it “tiny”. See below:

tiny url box

• Remember you might not get Twitter straight away but keep at it and the more you tweet the greater your understanding will become.  For a more exhaustive guide to Twitter check out this blog here: http://www.lostartofblogging.com/twitter-guide