social media strategy and Related Posts

Local Search, Here and There

Taxi and Uber drivers may or may not be a part of your marketing, but your local search marketing likely requires some attention.

Gone are the days when vacations were planned exclusively around the kitchen table with a stack of maps and travel brochures. Now, so many vacation choices are made on the fly with web and mobile local searches. What’s the best brunch place nearby? What are the top attractions for a rainy afternoon? What’s a kid-friendly spot for dinner and entertainment?

In fact, more and more, most family decisions are made in this same manner – from doctors to birthday party venues. And while many businesses get that they need a web site or social media presence, they don’t understand some of the fundamentals of local search marketing – how to end up in local search results or even get some local search results in terms of store traffic.

Getting Some Local Search Results

While we can’t map out a one-size-fits-all local search marketing strategy here, we can provide some tips that will help ensure that you’re going in the right direction. Most of these tips apply to anyone – whether you’re a local attraction, boutique, doctor’s office, or a brunch spot:

Google My Business
Make sure you have a Google My Business (formerly Google Places) account that is accurate and up-to-date. This is the first and most basic step. You’d be surprised how information gets populated in these local entries that is inaccurate and affects your walk-in traffic.

Link It Up
Link to your Google My Business information from your web site. You can leverage the free resources that Google My Business provides – like mapping and navigation capability. This directly affects how easily your customers discover and (if they) show up at your location. Plus, you don’t have to seek out web design services to build this from scratch.

Reward
Offer rewards or incentives for positive reviews and check-ins on social media and Google.

Manage Your Reputation
Actively monitor reviews on social media and Google and respond to them in a timely manner. Customers are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you address criticism diplomatically and directly.

Use Those Good Reviews
Call attention to those good reviews by sharing, retweeting, quoting, and thanking on social media. This also relieves some of your burden in generating fresh content.

Now, off for a bite to eat. Know a good place?

Let’s say you call a florist, and you have to leave a voicemail. Or, maybe you send an email. You wait for a reply. Nothing.

Earplugs should not be a part of any social media strategy — If your social media strategy was a person, would she be wearing earplugs?

Frustrating, isn’t it? You’ve probably been there before. It’s difficult to imagine someone being in business and letting inquiries go unanswered or ignoring opportunities to engage.

It’s also hard to imagine why you would have a phone or an email account if you didn’t bother to check the incoming communication.

But, that is exactly what happened in a recent informal experiment I ran using Twitter. True, it wasn’t exactly scientific. But, the process yielded some pretty useful insights for businesses and nonprofits alike.

So What Did I Do With Twitter?

I sent a variety of direct questions and shoutouts to businesses and other organizations. In most cases, these tweets were in direct response to being followed by the account.

A sample tweet might look like this:

[email protected] thanks for the follow! I haven’t visited #Springfield in a while. What’s a good time to visit?

Conversational. Engaging. Easy to include others in the conversation. This is exactly what marketers might kill for.

And What Were The Results?

Users – even pedestrian users – were generous with likes. 54% of the tweets generated likes from some source. This seems promising.

The surprising part? Only 8% generated either a mention or a private message in response. Crickets.

Don’t Forget The Social In Your Social Media Strategy

As a customer or interested prospect, imagine getting a “like” for your question, but no answer. It’s the equivalent of getting an automated message for your phone call that goes something like this . . . “We’re glad you called!” Click.

A recent experiment: Would certain businesses and #nonprofits respond to questions and shoutouts? 8% did. #SoMe #Twitter

— Gamelan LLC (@GamelanLLC) March 1, 2016

Business people – and even content marketers – can get so focused on using social media for pushing content that the social in social media gets lost. With so much noise out there, incoming communication – what’s supposed to be the heart and soul of social media – can be forgotten. It should not be. Incoming communication is one of the most effective ways to gain new eyeballs and prospects.

Is Your Social Media Strategy A One-Way or Two-Way Street?

In a later post, I’ll explore some of the potential causes for this neglect of engagement opportunities, but there are some big question to ask yourself right now before moving on:

Is your social media strategy one-way or two-way? Whether you’re a business or nonprofit, are you actively monitoring and managing your social media accounts? Or, are you just logging in to push out a message or a link occasionally?

If you think your strategy is more passive or it’s a one-way street, you’re very likely missing opportunities to engage on a meaningful level.