The Best Social Media Tools for Small Business Owners

When you run your own business, the most precious moments are not when you are in front of your computer. Right? Whether you own a hair salon, a restaurant, a chiropractic practice or a fine art gallery, working with your clients is your business’ life blood.

These days so many small business owners are overwhelmed with all of the social media tools at their fingertips. I find most of my clients are wary of starting a social media practice for fear that it will take over their life. I understand that concern!

With my own business, Julie Holmes Design, I have been frustrated with the amount of time I’ve spent each week to post relevant and interesting topics on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In fact, I posted (mostly to Facebook and Twitter) for nearly 3 years before I decided I needed to change my ways and then I posted just to Facebook with a link to my Twitter feed. More recently, I have been adding posts to Google+. After a total of four years of tweaking my use of social media tools, I have started to see a flurry of activity and traction (aka more clients) for my business from social media. But I always felt that these ‘tools’ were clearly a lot of work, particularly for a solo business owner who wants an online presence – until now. So here are my suggestions for the best social media tools for small business owners:

• You
• Your website
• Google+

Let me explain! You are the best ‘face’ to put forward for your business, regardless of your profession or industry. If you are knowledgeable, professional and creative in the ways you work with your clients to solve their particular problem, you will have happy clients and repeat customers. Social media is just another tool to help you build upon your reputation as an expert in what you do.

Your website is another tool to help you present yourself, virtually, to prospective clients. It’s helpful to have content, ideally via a blog, and ‘calls to action’ that are consistent with who you are and what you do. Just as clearly marked road signs help us reach our destination, a website that authentically represents you and your work is a wonderful way to reinforce your personal, face-to-face presence with an online presence.

With your business reputation growing and your online presence matching your ‘in person’ face, you may think that you’re done but there’s one more tool to add to your business toolkit and that is Google+. Why Google+? The biggest reason to choose Google+ for your social media engagement tool is simple: indexed posts. When you post relevant, helpful content to your Google+ profile, Google, the largest search engine in the world, will index that post. This means that, over time, you are creating content that prospects and clients can find. Unlike Facebook: every time you post in Facebook, you are sending information to a discrete group of people, that is, those who are your friends or have ‘liked’ your page. But any individual posts that you create in Facebook are not indexed and so your content is only relevant to those who happen to see your post at the time you make it or who choose to take the time to scroll through your timeline. Yes – you can post on and even pay Facebook for sponsored posts…or you can post on Google+ and see your business thrive and grow, online.

For more stories, ‘how tos’ and tips about using Google+ for your business, check out my Google+ profile and/or share your stories here in the blog!