073 – How to Use Social Media for Local Business

by | May 27, 2019 | local business, Podcasts

Learn how to use social media for local business in this week’s podcast!

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich, I interview Deborah Smith, founder of JerseyBites.com, an online publication covering the food and restaurant scene in New Jersey since 2007. Karen and Deborah discuss the importance of leveraging the community for your local business, as well as ways she helps small businesses grow their local brand through social media and content creation.

 

We are joined by Deborah Smith is the founder of JerseyBites.com, an online publication covering the food and restaurant scene in New Jersey since 2007. Her marketing agency, Foxtrot Media LLC., specializes in social media management, Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, photo and video creation, review generation, and more for restaurants and other businesses. Through JerseyBites.com, Deborah leverages the highly engaged foodie community she has cultivated for over a decade on social media to help restaurants grow their business. She is also the author of The Jersey Shore Cookbook, a collection of 50 recipes from 50 beloved shore restaurants.

 

 

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We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

 

About the Episode:

We’re focusing all on local businesses here today, and how better to learn about using social media for local business, than from someone who works to help market local restaurants?

Here are 3 important tips from Deborah when it comes to leveraging social media for your local business:

 

HAVE GREAT CONTENT

 

Since Deborah helps local restaurants grow, she focused on the importance of great food pictures! I mean think about it, how can you market your food on social media if

  1. You don’t have any pictures of the food
  2. The pictures of your food aren’t attractive
  3. People can’t tell what your food is??

 

This applies to so many businesses in how it’s extremely important to have high quality, attractive visuals for your brand, whether it be photo’s or videos!

 

This day in age, our phone’s can take amazing quality photo’s. To leverage social media for your local business, invest time in training of your social media team to take high-quality, attractive photo’s that stand out from your competition.

 

**Quick tip: make sure you stay consistent in posting. Even periods of 2-3 days of not posting sends a message that you’re not a business that is invested in it’s customers. You don’t have to post a thousand times a day, but make sure you stick with a set schedule! Also be mindful to give your audience information when they are most likely to see it! i.e don’t post last nights dinner special the next morning!

 

INCORPORATE THE COMMUNITY

 

You’re a local business, therefore it’s important to cater and highlight your community through social media! Before heading out to take pictures of your customers or post someone’s comments, it’s important to take a few things into consideration:

 

  1. Do you have their permission to be photographed?
  2. Do you have their permission to be re-posted?
  3. Is the content on brand?

 

Engagement from the community is also extremely important. Did someone leave a comment on your post tagging a friend saying they should try a dish? Respond! Is someone mentioning they missed out on a great dish you just posted? Offer them a discount to come in and try it! Making the community feel loved on social media from your local business can easily turn into a butterfly effect. One happy customer can lead to their recommendation to a friend and so-forth.

 

INVEST IN FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM ADVERTISING

 

A quick tip would be investing in Facebook / Instagram advertising to leverage social media for your local business. It’s extremely efficient and cost effective at targeted by geo-location and pin-pointing your ideal customer. However you can’t just throw money at a post and expect it to work for you. Have a plan when it comes to your budget and strategy.

 

From here, you want to make sure you strategically create the content so the customer wants to come in and engage. This is where you can highlight special promotions, events and new products from you business. Each piece of content should answer 3 questions:

 

  1. Why does the customer need my business?
  2. What problem am I helping my ideal customer solve with my business?
  3. How can I attract the customer to my business?

Episode Spotlights:

  • Meet Deborah Smith, founder of com (4:43)
  • What led Deborah to create her famous, Jersey Shore Cookbook (7:23)
  • What led to Deborah creating her own business and blog, jerseybites.com (9:20)
  • How local businesses can incorporate social media tools (16:22)
  • How Deborah works with clients to produce and use content that benefits then (23:22)
  • Should you take a personal brand approach to the clients you work with? (25:25)
  • How to incorporate clients customers into the content mix (27:35)
  • What’s next for Jersey Bites (29:47)
  • Find Deborah on social media and visit her agency website (33:04)
  • New Jersey “foodie things to do calendar” (33:33)
  • Best thing to invest in as a local business (34:27)

 

Episode Spotlights:

  • Meet Deborah Smith, founder of com (4:43)
  • What led Deborah to create her famous, Jersey Shore Cookbook (7:23)
  • What led to Deborah creating her own business and blog, jerseybites.com (9:20)
  • How local businesses can incorporate social media tools (16:22)
  • How Deborah works with clients to produce and use content that benefits then (23:22)
  • Should you take a personal brand approach to the clients you work with? (25:25)
  • How to incorporate clients customers into the content mix (27:35)
  • What’s next for Jersey Bites (29:47)
  • Find Deborah on social media and visit her agency website (33:04)
  • New Jersey “foodie things to do calendar” (33:33)
  • Best thing to invest in as a local business (34:27)

 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

 

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5 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Get More Local Business

by | Oct 10, 2016 | local business, Social Media and PR

Your business is on Main Street, not on Wall Street.

You see the Fortune 500 companies doing it, getting publicity and visibility, but what about YOU?

It’s just as important to build credibility and trust when working locally, I’d say even MORE important if you want to STAY in business. Now, are you wondering how can you do that virtually through LinkedIn?

Here are five tips on how you can use LinkedIn to increase your local business:

1. Establish Yourself as a Local Expert

Increasing familiarity with your business is so important when building a profitable foundation in a local business area. Showing local clients what you do, how you do it and your success rates right from the beginning will attract the local client base and establish trust in your abilities.

You might even want to get a LinkedIn company page up and running to focus solely on your businesses brand. Once you have it made, go ahead and promote yourself! LinkedIn has multiple options now that allow you to promote your page as advertisements to target segments. Get your business out there, get connecting with people and show them your successes. And don’t be afraid to brag a little!

2. Attract Top Employees

Every business needs a strong employee base to enhance productivity. Once you’ve established yourself as a local expert, recruiting top tier members to support your business is essential for growth.

Make use of the job postings section. Seek out suggestions from credible sources and get digging on which you believe can enhance your business.

3. Build a Network of Local Business Owners

As I mentioned in my Social Media Quick Tip: Local LinkedIn Networking Groups article, I love local-based networking groups. People love to do business with associates, which make it a key topic to consider when growing your local business and network of clients.

Join a few local networking groups and see what the conversations about; or even start your own! From there, you can engage with local business owners, give recommendations, post blogs and mention events you may have coming up. From here you can establish connections, as well as gain multiple clients from your participation in these groups.

Once you’ve built this network, connect with your local clients! It’s a great way to stay in touch, further your client base and support the people who support you!

4. Host Events and Promote in Local LinkedIn Groups

Getting face-to-face meetings with potential clients is the ultimate goal in building relationships with local business owners. By hosting events relative to your audience, you create the opportunity to get in front of these businesses that may need your help.

Promote these events in the location-based groups you have created, as well as post your events to other local groups that attract your target audience.

5. Don’t Forget Personal Branding!

When it’s all said and done, your business is nothing without your personal brand. Be sure to stay true to what you have a built and maintain these positive social networking relationships through your brand image. After all, you are what you post!

Ready to get started? Check out this free video series! www.gmctips.com You’ll learn some fun ways to get more clients!

3 Ways Your Local Business Can Take Advantage of Pokémon Go

by | Jul 18, 2016 | local business

If you’re a local business owner and haven’t kept up with the recent buzz surrounding Pokémon Go, there may be a good reason for you to tune in!

The augmented reality game has taken over the digital world in the past week with over 15 million downloads. It’s installed on more devices than LinkedIn, and people are spending more time per day playing the game than using Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter or Instagram!

Why does this matter for your local business? What makes this mobile-app unique is that it is geographically-based, sending users to real world locations in order to capture Pokémon. Why not make that “real world location” your brick-and-mortar store, and increase foot traffic?

Here are a few ways to take advantage of this phenomenon using social media, and attract a wave of gaming customers to your location:
 

Lure “parties”

If you business happens to be a “Pokéstop” or is near one (download the app to check), you can purchase something called a lure. A lure attracts more Pokémon, and therefore more gamers, to your location for a span of 30 minutes, and only costs 99 cents!

Buy multiple lures to make the effect last for a few hours, and then promote your “lure party” on social media! You can make this event even more attractive for local players by posting about coupons or specials you will be offering during the time your lures are active.

*To purchase a lure, tap the red Pokéball inside the app, press “Shop” and then tap the purple Lure icon.  After paying, tap the red Pokéball again, press “Items” and tap the purple lure to activate.
 

Hashtags

Post content related to the game (or take user-generated content from the screenshots in the tip above) and use hashtags #pokemongo and #pokemon, along with location-based hashtags for your area. This will allow nearby players to easily find you on social media, and let them know that they should come scout out your location.
 

Gamer discounts

Provide a discount to players who post screenshots of Pokémon they capture in your store and tag you on social media. This spreads the word to their followers – who are most likely in your area – that your store is a good place to catch Pokémon. To drive even more gamers to your location, make sure you’re constantly promoting this discount on your social pages.

Even if the world of Pokémon is foreign to you, you can easily leverage this fad as a local marketing opportunity. Get the players in your community through your door, and start converting them into paying customers!

 
Want some help? Apply for a complimentary session with me! Just go to www.kyapply.com