Unless you have been under a rock, you have heard of MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook.  These sites are what is referred to as social online marketing.  Social marketing is one of the key components of local search marketing.  The question I am raising today, “Does today’s small business need to worry about it and if so, how involved should they get?”

The quick answer is “yeah, but….”

A small business needs to be involved with social marketing. Being able to connect with customers and more importantly potential local customers is what it is all about.  Social marketing is growing at a tremendous pace right now and with anything online, if it is hot, you want to be a part of it.

I recently came across a couple of related articles that are worth reading:  How SMBs Can Optimize their Social Networking Time (2 part article) and Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn by Carrie Hilland and Social Media Marketing for Small Business.  Both provides some good ideas on small business and social marketing

Ok, back to the “yeah , but…” Social marketing/networking biggest problem is TIME. It takes time to read blogs, write tweets, get friends, reply to emails, etc. Time is the one thing we the small business owners do not have enough of; trust me I am speaking from experience.  I find myself spending tons of time on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. trying to keeping up with things rather than getting my work done. It is addicting!

I really do not think it is realistic for the typical small business owner to be doing a lot of social online marketing. You really cannot keep up with it all. Your best bet is to hire a professional web marketer to monitor/maintain your online social network.  Now if that is now an option, I would:

• Get an account on each of the major social sites and try them out. Each one has its own unique or signature feature.
• Talk to your current customers and see what they use.
• Decide what is your reason for social marketing- plug specials, converse with customers, simply provide updates, learn more about your field, teach others about your field, etc.
• Once you find one that works for you, use and use it daily. Don’t have to spend hours on it, just set aside some time each day.

Customer are the key to any business and relating and conversing with customers is how you keep them.…Sorry I need to go…. someone just sent me a tweet, I got a new Facebook friend,  got to update my flickr page, need to stumbleUpon an article, check my rss feeds, read some emails, and I got to finish my blog post on social marketing!

Larry Sullivan is a well known local search marketing expert. Larry provides online marketing assistance to small business across the country. He also runs a popular local search blog at Local Biz Bits. Email this author | See all posts by Larry Sullivan

Tags | facebook, Flickr, MySpace, social marketing, Social network, Social network service, twitter