Everyone is using social media these days. Even my grandparents are figuring out how to use Facebook and Twitter. Thanks to its incredible rise in popularity, social media has quickly become an important marketing tool. There are a bunch of articles online that will give you great tips on how to use social media, but there aren’t as many that detail what you shouldn’t do. If you avoid the following pitfalls, your business will be in better shape than most.

Don’t spam followers

No one likes spam. This is especially true on social media, where people opt in to see news from your company. They aren’t being forced to see your posts, so don’t make un-following your profile an appealing option. Avoid multiple posts in short periods of time. Try to space them out on networks. Hourly tweets are fine, but aim for only a few posts a week on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Don’t only promote your own products

Everyone has that one friend who only talks about themselves. This routine gets really old, really fast. Pretty soon you find yourself avoiding that person whenever possible. The same thing goes for consumers when they see a company only promoting themselves. Everyone likes sales deals, but they don’t want to be bombarded by them 24/7. Mix it up! Include some links to interesting industry articles, infographics, or videos from other websites.

Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to create more exposure on networks like Twitter. They are essentially an easy way of searching and organizing information for users. For instance, if you would like to see everything that is being said about website design, you could just search for #websitedesign on Twitter. That being said, remember to use only relevant hashtags whenever possible. If you are a website design business common hashtags might include #webdesign, #websitedesign etc. #Don’t #use #hashtags #for #every #word #like #some #teenagers #do. That’s just #annoying.

Don’t post at irregular hours

Find out when your target segment is most active online. If they are using social media from 9 am – 5 pm then post during that time. Don’t post at 8 pm. This will help to maximize your exposure, and increase your chances of finding a lead.

Don’t ignore mentions, comments, RTs

Acknowledge your customers if they interact with you via social media! Say thank you for re-tweets or shares on different networks. Be sure to respond to any questions or comments you receive. Timely responses makes users feel valued, and improve your overall brand equity.

The small business world is an exciting one. There are tons of directions you can take your marketing, you have the flexibility to do so, but not necessarily the funds. Blogging is an excellent cost-effective marketing tool that is becoming more and more popular. This marketing approach allows you to generate dynamic content to share with your audience that helps build traffic to your website. If you think the idea of blogging appears daunting, fear not! It is very easy to do, and there are plenty of tips and tricks out there to help you along the way. Here are a few:

Create a realistic, manageable schedule

Blogging is only as time consuming as you make it out to be. If you don’t have the time to blog much, try and create one article a week. It should only take a few hours to research and write. The time needed for this will also drop the more you blog as you get it down to a science. You should never force yourself to blog when it comes at the expense of something that is potentially more profitable for your company. Also, realize that building a following by blogging does take time, so by creating an article a week you will help lay the groundwork for more exposure in the future. People will be impressed by the depth of your content database, as well as your dedication to blogging. A good schedule will help to keep your business top of mind among consumers, and put you at the forefront of options when they are ready to buy.

Create and keep an idea file

There are many excuses thrown out there as to why it’s hard to blog. One of the more common ones is that ‘there isn’t enough to write about.’ A great way around this is to keep an idea file, where you place article ideas every time one comes to mind. You can also try researching trends or best practices in your target industry since other people will probably have already written about them. Compiling a list of ideas and sources to pull writing inspiration from will help smooth out the learning curve.

Make it shareable

The entire point of blogs is to get people to share your content. Putting social media links to share articles is an absolute must. Promote your articles on your social media accounts as well to maximize exposure. If you give people the option of sharing content they will do so. Email campaigns for users who subscribe to your blog are also great for keeping your company top of mind.

Social media is one of the most powerful marketing platforms today for any brand. As a retailer, you need to leverage social media channels to generate buzz, and increase brand awareness. So how do you go about doing that?

Get active on every social media channel that your target market is active on.

The first step is to know who your target market is. Once you know that you can easily figure out what channels you need to be active on. Are you a small restaurant? Go where the foodies are. Instagram, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter etc. This goes the same for any business. Being active where your target consumers are means you will quickly gain brand exposure. Also, STAY active. Post daily on channels like Twitter or bi-weekly on Facebook. You need to keep your brand top of mind among consumers.

Create a unique online brand persona.

As a retailer, you have a unique advantage over B2B companies by appealing directly to consumers. You can employ much more creative social media strategies since you don’t have to be as strictly professional as B2B marketers. Creating a unique brand persona is critical. What do your customers like? Are they snarky? Then by all means create a snarky persona. Some of the top performing brands have great personalities like Old Spice and Taco Bell. Again, knowing your target customers’ profile is critical to finding which brand persona will work for you.

Encourage brand engagement with a word of mouth strategy.

One of the best ways to market your retail brand online is to use a word of mouth strategy. Social media is all about posting things that go viral. Strategies like offering special deals if you Like/Re-tweet/Share/ brand posts are great at generating buzz. Also, be sure to not just promote selling your products. You can also post other types of engaging content like humorous musings, or pictures/videos of your offerings. As long as your content relates to your customers they will share it. Mix it up, don’t spam your followers, and you will be in great shape.

More business equals more profits. There are many ways to increase sales, but a lot of these can be quite troublesome. One of the easiest methods available is to increase your service offerings. By becoming a one stop shop, you can capture every single dimension of a client’s project, and not lose any revenue to other businesses.

Here are three ways to accomplish just that:

Add on-going service offerings to retain business

Cash flow is extremely important for business. Building consistent revenue is crucial to ensuring business survival. Adding ongoing service options such as SEO, content optimization or design alterations can go a long way to stabilizing cash flow. This is even more important if you see that your competitors are employing similar methods. Monthly subscription packages also allow you to maintain close relationships with companies. Eventually, they will have another large project to do and you’ll already be top of mind.

Become proficient in multiple web platforms

WordPress designers are a dime a dozen. The problem is that not every business wants a WordPress site.

And this doesn’t only apply to WordPress. There are quite a number of designers that specialize in only one platform.  They fail to realize that they are potentially limiting their business by doing this. Larger enterprises may want something based on .NET or another platform. Becoming proficient in multiple platforms will open up more doors, meaning more sales.

Outsource development to increase profits and secure more contracts

This ties in to the idea of becoming a one-stop shop for clients. While offering great design services can lead to business success, tying in good development services to the mix is essential. Offering to do both design and development for clients will streamline their processes and minimize costs, while creating more profit for you.

Outsourcing development is cheaper than it has ever been before. There are tons of companies both local and abroad that are looking for work and are willing to provide great deals.

Also, outsourcing development work goes both ways. As your business relationships grow, you development partners may approach you with potential design opportunities.

Definitely a win-win for all parties involved.

Social media is becoming more and more important in business. It allows you to engage your target audience directly, as well as serving as a valuable SEO and lead generation tool. Site Evaluator analyzes your use of social media using a variety of metrics. Here’s three ways on how to improve both your social media, and overall site score.

Place social media links/buttons on your website pages

This has quickly become a must-have on any website. If you are using social networks to reach out to consumers you absolutely need to have buttons linking to your accounts on every page. Make it easy for users to see how to connect with you. Oftentimes, social media is the place where people get to see a different, more personable side of the company. If this means more sales leads, you need to make sure to link to these accounts every chance you get.

Actively engage your target audience on social networks to improve Klout score

Engaging your audience does mean sharing content you have generated with your networks. It does not mean force feeding them your content. Don’t spam your followers, and be sure your content is actually interesting to them. If they start sharing or re-tweeting your posts you are in good shape. Also, take any opportunity you get to share their content, as long as it is relevant to your business. People love attention on social media. Klout is a service that measure how people interact with your posts and you with theirs. The more back and forth there is, the higher your influence score will be.

Actively share your website and any content you have on your website with links pointing back to your site

Inbound links from social media networks are becoming increasingly important. This is a huge part of inbound marketing. Make sure these links are connected to great content that will help retain user traffic. Once you have a good content generation system in place, people will take notice, and actively search for your content on social networks. Great content means more followers, which means more traffic, and that means more sales opportunities.