In the first part of this multi-part series we covered setting up a website for your small business and how to optimize it correctly to get a head start in ranking your services in the organic results. Part two will discuss social media strategies for a small business owner with an emphasis on time constraints.
I don’t have time to post on Facebook, twitter etc…
You are right, if you own a small business then it’s safe to say you should be focused on one thing and one thing only and that is running your business. In most cases, that is why small business owners neglect to set up a website as well. They just don’t have the time to effectively market their business and end up trying to decide which avenue to pursue; social media or a website.
The bad news
Unfortunately, as I move farther away from strictly focusing on SEO and more towards a holistic approach to marketing it has become apparent that you can’t ignore either. You potential customers/clients/audience all hangout in different areas and you need to be in those areas as well to get noticed. Sure, you can run a successful business from word of mouth (and I know someone who has with using zero marketing) but in 2016 and beyond if you don’t attempt to have a presence online then you can bet that your competitors area. If this happens, you are leaving money on the table.
The good news
We have been using a system that works to simplify the process of social media marketing and it is easily something a small business owner (or us) can set up. It’s nothing new, but recently has had a push to implement and we jumped on the bandwagon. After testing and tracking, the SEO benefits are huge as is the presence that you business builds online.
Enter the IFTTT network
IFTTT stands for “if this then that” and is a completely free service for anyone to use. We haven’t even begun to scratch the service on the uses of IFTTT for a small business and that’s ok, for today we will cover the most simple use possible.
Step 1: Claim all your social profiles
A good start is to set up all your social profiles
- google+
- blogger
- wordpress.com
- tumblr
- youtube (connected to google+ and blogger
- about.me
All these pages should have your logo, business information and anything else relevant that a potential customer would be interested in learning about you. We won’t be using these pages to update the world on what you had for breakfast the previous day so keep that in mind.
Step 2: Interlink the profiles
Almost all of these web2.0 and social profiles allow you to add additional links. Add as many as possible for each profile, in the event that you can only add one link then utilize your business website.
Step 3: Create your IFTTT account and add recipes
Once you enter IFTTT.com then you will create your first recipe. Essentially what you do is create an action and then a re-action (IF THIS THEN THAT). Your first step will be to grab your attribution link from your wordpress RSS feed (of your business website).
It’s safe to say that most people are using the Yoast SEO plugin, in the advanced settings you will find the RSS tab. Edit that tab as shown to include a link back to your website as seen.
Once this is set up properly we have taken care of duplicate content issues on the web. The attribution link basically says
Here is some content, I didn’t write it I got it from here
and provides a link back to your website. As you can see, this will allow you to begin to build back links back to your site from your social properties. This is something that can help build brand relevance and pad your anchor text when building back links.
Create your first recipe
Click on the “this” clickable link and it will bring you to an option where you can enter a trigger channel. Enter “feed” and then click the RSS icon
Choose the option “new feed item” and then enter your website feed url. In most cases, this will be your domain.com/feed and then select “create trigger”
After this you will have a selection of web 2.0 properties that you can select. I go alphabetically down the list starting with blogger
Find the blogger icon (the orange one with the “B”) and select it and click “create a new post”
This will bring you to the options for creating a post
Note: I usually will delete the link to IFTT in the body as well as the IFTTT in “labels”
after you have done this, create the recipe and repeat for all other social profiles that you have created.
What have we done here?
Essentially we are managing the content posted on your branded properties through one channel, your RSS blog feed. What this means is that anything posted to the blog will get syndicated with your attribution link back to your blog site.
This alleviates the headache of posting separately to your social media accounts and builds your presence online. In order to get the most out of this system you really need to focus on creating good content for your audience and show your authority.
Final thoughts
After setting up your social properties you can focus on providing relevant information to your audience. While this method won’t increase likes or build followers directly, it is a step in the right direction for most small business owners.
This post first appeared at TUGTSBM Part 2: Social Media to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/tugtsbm-part-2-social-media/
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