Their numbers show that 61% of small business owners are using social media to identify and track new customers, 75% have a company page on at least one social networking site, and 45% expect to see profits from social media this year.

Social media has vast potential for local, national, and international advertising. Most savvy small businesses are already tapping into that.

If you’re new to this, though, you’ll want to know how.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook

The number one social media site and the most useful for most small businesses is Facebook. If your business deals with the general public, or both individual customers and other businesses, then Facebook is king. It’s relatively easy to set up with, has over 400 million users worldwide, and is by far the most well-known of the social networking websites.

First and foremost, begin with a Fan Page for your business. Create your Page using your business name. If you don’t have a personal Facebook account, you will probably want to set that up as well. Fan Pages are where Facebook users go to say they like something (a product, a company, etc.) and can leave (moderated) comments about them. It will also have other basic information such as a link to your company’s website, any contact information you want to include, etc. Personal pages have a lot more information involved and can be used to promote as well, but aren’t as easy to maintain or promote as are Fan Pages. Once you have your Fan Page ready to launch, put a link to it (a ‘Fan’ button) on your website.

Before you get really in-depth with your Facebook presence, though, you should search for and evaluate your competitors and their presence there. This will give you an idea of how they’re using the site, what you can do to better use it yourself, etc.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is business-oriented, so if your business primarily deals with other businesses, then this is the site to use. The site is made up of professionals and boasts 50 million users from 100 different countries.

Set up your LinkedIn profile for your business and, possibly, yourself. Make sure to link them together if you do both. Search for your clients and vendors on LinkedIn and ‘friend’ them. Then encourage those clients and vendors to give you a ‘recommendation’ on your profile. This builds credibility and begins networking your profile to others. Your clients may have friends who haven’t heard of you, but will now see you as linked with their friend.

You’ll find that for search engine results, a good LinkedIn profile often ranks higher than does a corporate website.

Other Sites

There are plenty of other sites, though their marketing potential is not as easily quantified. Twitter is the most common after Facebook, but it requires more work (time/effort) to use and has a larger learning curve in terms of marketing. It can pay off well, though.

Mobile social networks such as Gowalla and Foursquare are also becoming very popular. If your business is with consumers at a local level (rather than national or international), these sites may be something you’ll find profit in.

Most businesses that utilize social media are using a variety of them together. Combining them is usually relatively easy and can make for consistent branding across multiple platforms, but it requires diligence and time. Many platforms such as Foursquare automatically integrate with Twitter and/or Facebook, effectively combining these two without much additional effort.

Explore the possibilities and see what seems to fit best with your business model. Whatever you do, get into it. Social media is fast becoming the 21st century’s word of mouth advertising.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Yields New Customers For Small Businesses
2. Retailers Without Social Media Presence Miss Opportunity
3. Using Twitter For Business

Here are excerpts from the article where I was quoted:

James Burchill, a Toronto-based integrated marketing consultant specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), said he expects Google to leverage its capacity to go local.

“They figure that if they can get more geo-specific localization theyʼre able … increase their [advertising] market,” he said.

“I think this is probably part of their strategy to provide the necessary on-site or in-country support for business-to-business advertising.”

Burchill said Googleʼs latest portal, Google Health, also indicates where the company may be headed in Canada.

Launched in 2008, the site gives people the ability to organize their health records online and securely share information with doctors and healthcare providers. Burchill said the tool could give Google information about health trends across the country, which healthcare providers may be willing to pay for.

Google appears to be seeking fortunes beyond the search-engine market because search is under siege from social networking, Burchill said.

“People are now creating networks and clustering together. If you think of Google as a library where you can get facts, think of social networking as your local favourite coffee shop where people are talking,” he said.

“Google realizes that if it stays in good old-fashioned search, itʼs going to start losing ground to social networking,” Burchill said. He added that the company has to find new ways to compete and protect its brand.

But if history is any guide, Googleʼs prospects as a social networking engine may not be so good.

“They canʼt necessarily compete with the Facebooks of the world,” Burchill said. “They tried that with two projects recently and they burned out quite nicely.”

Burchill was referring to Google Buzz, a Gmail social networking service that critics say may not take off, and Google Wave, an online collaboration service that did not become as popular as Google hoped. The company recently said it will phase out Google Wave and use its technology in other initiatives.

The full story is available online. *TIP* If you search Google for the following phrase: “james burchill” +”wire report” you may still find the cached version of the entire article — no login required to access.

Related posts:

1. Marketers Measure Social Media Impressions
2. Social Media in Small Business – Making the Most of It
3. How Will Social Networking Evolve in the Year 2010?

Please participate and http://Nominate.JamesBurchill.com in the SERVICE INDUSTRY category if you think I merit it. My company name is Business Fusion Marketing.

The Business Excellence Awards will be presented at the Burlington Business Awards Gala on April 7, 2011, hope to see you there and thank you in advance for your support.

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1. Burlington Chamber of Commerce: Why It Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy
2. Social Media in Small Business – Making the Most of It
3. Using Twitter For Business

Would you like to guarantee YOUR email campaigns are delivered to the in-box where they belong? Then you absolutely MUST implement these best practices because an email in the SP*M-can is a waste of your precious time and money.

1. Provide Valuable Content

Make sure all of your emails are relevant to your contacts. Send you customer and prospects an invitation, a tip or trick of the trade, a coupon, a friendly note, or an offer. Just make sure it’s something they’ll want to receive from you.

2. DON’T Buy or Rent Lists

Doing so almost guarantees you’ll be SP*Mming people. Did you collect the names? Did the people ask you for information? Nope? Then it’s SP*M!

“But where do I get names from?” you might ask. Well, start with what you’ve got, ask for referrals, put banners on sites, use pay-per-click-ads, get people to post about you, use lead generation tools, and use social networking. May sound like a slow start…buy boy does it beat paying fines for breaking SP*M rules.

3. Double Opt-in Your Contacts

That basically guarantees you have permission to market to them. Double opting-in requires your contacts to confirm their contact information BEFORE you start you email marketing campaigns. It’s an extra step, and yes, you will lose some of your potential leads. But the odds of being considered a “SP*Mmer” go way down!

4. Clean Your Contact List Every 6-12 Months

This means you take every contact that you haven’t engaged with somehow – no downloads, no requests, no new opt-ins – and do one of two things. Either delete them from the list or send an email that asks them to confirm their continued interest.

5. Know the CAN-SPAM Guidelines

The rules about SP*M regulate your header content, your subject line information, your opt-out requirements, and how you identify yourself. Know the rules so you can keep your money in your pocket.

For more information about improving your email marketing practices, click to download a free guide about Email Marketing 2.0

Related posts:

1. The Impact of Autoresponders in 2010
2. How to Protect Your Privacy on Facebook

Integrated Internet Marketing

Here’s one on my favourite process maps, I originally developed it about 5 years ago for a major project I was working on. Since then I’ve updated it and enhanced it to keep it current and relevant.

Integrated Internet Marketing Process Map

You’ll find this process map an invaluable guide to thinking about your online marketing processes. Remember, internet marketing is NOT the only form of marketing and needs to be part of an integrated marketing approach.

For more advice and other resources I recommend you subscribe to my weekly marketing tips newsletter – the sign up form is on the top right of this page. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. 7 Step Schematic for Internet & Social Media Marketing
2. Which Internet Marketing Strategy For 2010?
3. Video Marketing Gets Easier in 2010 for a Slew of New Internet Marketers

My success with social media comes from systemizing it. Sadly some folks get all ‘upset’ when they hear I use automation to help with the workload, but seriously folks … social media is not manageable if you try and do it all yourself!

That’s the dirty little secret of social media. On your own you can only do so much. It stays small, “friendly”, you can interact with a few hundred people and hey – if that’s all you want then rock and roll, you’re good to go.

However, if you want to make money (rather than friends) with social media then you need systems, strategies and some cool tactics that make it happen. That’s where my Social Fusion Formula comes in.

I suggest you visit the website today and grab the schematic that outlines how I pull off this rather impressive feat of systemization. The download form is on the first page and all I ask in exchange is your email address so I know who’s requesting it.

You might also like to know that I am recording a series of training videos that walk through the stages and steps of successfully implementing your own Social Fusion Formula and those will be along shortly.

Anyway, for now grab the SFF schematic and discover my social media ‘secret weapon’

Related posts:

1. Social Media’s Dark Secret
2. 7 Step Schematic for Internet & Social Media Marketing
3. How To Increase Your Marketing Effectiveness by a Factor of 53 With This Social Media

Click to download...

Here’s an internal document we use at BFM to help keep us on track with the 7 steps of successful social media and internet marketing.

And as a follow up to my recent blog post article about helping business get clearer on this subject, I figured I’d start showing you what really happens behind the curtain

To download your copy of this schematic simply click the image or this link (no opt-in required.)

http://BusinessFusionMarketing.com/download/7-step-schematic.pdf

And please pass this this schematic along to your colleagues and co-workers. The more people understand what internet marketing and social media is truly about, the less people will get ‘snowed’ by slick salespeople promising pie-high horse pucky for peanuts…

Related posts:

1. How To Increase Your Marketing Effectiveness by a Factor of 53 With This Social Media
2. Integrated Internet Marketing Process Map
3. Video Marketing Gets Easier in 2010 for a Slew of New Internet Marketers

Click to watch...

Click to watch my short video about ‘cheap websites’ and discover the true cost to your business… I’m confident this video will tick off the “shady web companies” because I reveal the hidden costs ‘they’ don’t want you to know. It’s all part of my commitment to transparency

*Video plays in a new browser window, no download required.

Related posts:

1. “Subliminal Persuasion” by Edward Bernays
2. Google Threatens To Kill You

Newsflash

Today I want to share my feelings about the disturbing number of people hanging out a shingle claiming to be social media experts. It’s like the heady days of web dev when anybody could say to themselves “hey, I have some design skills… I can build a website, afterall it’s the same thing as print.” – Wrong. It’s this low quality threshold that’s costing local business many tens of thousands of dollars.

I can’t tell you the number of businesses we get called into to clean up after some other “provider” has messed it up and left the client high and dry. They’ve usually pitched some pie-high promise or “guaranteed” certain results. NEWSFLASH PEOPLE… no one controls Google or the search engines. In fact, since May this year there have been 3 major changes that altered the landscape online.

And please don’t fall for sexy websites and slick sales people. Try and remember that web dev is software dev, and social media is a fusion of technology and communication. You need experience in this realm to be any good. I know it’s new and it’s tough to tell, but trust me when I say – all that glitters is not gold.

So it’s on this note I pledge to continue shining light into the darkest corners of those web and social media projects that go awry. My associates and I will continue to hold supplier companies to a high standard and when a client calls us and we discover the ‘horse pucky’ they were sold, we will be adding another supplier name to “the list.”

Over the coming months Business Fusion Marketing will be getting more hands on with the entire project process and while we’ve remained in an advisory role for the most part, we are currently creating alliances with approved suppliers and vendors that meet our stringent criteria. And we’re hiring too, quality writers, coders, web designers and social media pros.

I’ll leave you today with this thought. If you have a nagging sense your web or social media project is ‘not quite right,’ contact me directly or use the BFM contact form. We will happily provide you with an impartial professional review and give you the facts. I can’t promise you will like the answers, but they will be based on quantifiable data and you will get the straight goods.

I promise.

Related posts:

1. The Social Fusion Effect

Source: ComScore

Related posts:

1. Facebook Marketing Comes Full Circle in 2010
2. What New Google Features Can Help You Make Money in 2010?
3. How Will Social Networking Evolve in the Year 2010?