Like many entrepreneurs, you understand that social media for small businesses works differently than it does for the big consumer brands. Referrals are the lifeblood of your business and the relationships you establish in your community help determine your success. You know it works the same way online.

But, your time is at a premium, so it’s important to know which techniques in social media for small businesses will bring the biggest return on investment (ROI). Whether it’s your time or your money, you want to know it’s well spent. We understand, and know it can be overwhelming to decide which social media platform is best for your business. It seems a new one pops up almost daily! It can be frustrating to try and keep up.

Tools to Maximize Social Media for Small Businesses

We consider the following tools our “Top 10” for what a small business needs to do to get a great start in social media networking. They will help you build your network, do contests and promotions, share information…basically everything you need as a small business!

• WordPress – Your business needs a blog, and you need a way to manage your website content. WordPress is the easiest to use and it’s free, which is probably why it’s considered the best open-source Content Management System (CMS). The paid version is also a very reasonable cost and offers thousands of ways to customize, from visually appealing template designs to handy and helpful plugins.
• LinkedIn – Showcase your business by setting up a “company page” on LinkedIn (it’s similar to a business profile on Google Plus, which is another social media tool you should have in your toolbox). Joining and participating in groups is a great way to get noticed on LinkedIn.
• Facebook – Everyone’s business, large or small, should have a Facebook page. You probably already do have a page for yours, but if you want to build your fan base, you’ll need to learn how to use apps, such as those from North Social to run contests and promos on your page.
• TweetDeck (by Twitter) – Trust us when we say, this tool will be your new best friend. Learn how to use hashtags properly (such as #hashtag, not #hash tag). It’s the language of Twitter and the key to finding leads and followers relevant for your business.
• Pinterest – So much fun! This is a fairly new tool to social media for small business, but it seems to be growing faster than any other site. A Huffington Post article says “ComScore analyst Andrew Lipsman says he has not seen an independent website reach 10 million visitors faster than Pinterest.”
• YouTube – If content is king, video is the queen. Mobile video marketing is one of the most versatile methods of doing social media and viral marketing. There are new interactive video editing tools on the market, such as ClickBerry for Facebook, which make it as easy as putting a PowerPoint presentation together. Don’t get left behind!
• Raven Tools – Now that you are doing all this great social media and online marketing for your business, you’ll want to know if it’s working. Reporting tools are a crucial part of determining the ROI of your efforts. This one is very user friendly and affordable.

Once you get comfortable with these key tools, feel free to add more. Three Girls Media is always here as your PR and social media expert to help you out, too.

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