By mike thorpe

Small businesses don’t understand social media. They think marketing their business through social media is WAY different than having a personal Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter page. That is why your small business sucks at social media marketing.

Your business page shouldn’t look radically different than your personal page. Think about it, most people’s personal Facebook accounts have HUNDREDS of friends (most of which the account owner never speaks with). How did you do that?

I’ll tell you how. You posted interesting stuff that your friends “liked”, shared, and commented on. This left your account name on their news feed for others to see. Your name caught someones attention, so they added you.

Do the same thing with your business accounts. Create and share content in the same way you would on your personal page. Make business and marketing an afterthought. Nobody cares what your product is and more to the point, nobody wants to share what your product is with other people (unless it really is that amazing).

Beyond the content that you share, you also need to connect with other people. I see small business social media accounts with 10 “likes” but they haven’t bothered to “like” anything themselves. People will promote you if you promote them. When you first start your business social media account, you should “like” more page than “like” you. Things will start to turn around pretty quickly.

One last thought, don’t purchase Facebook friends and Twitter followers. They don’t love you. People who use your products and services love you and will spread your message. The number of fans doesn’t matter, it’s the number of fans that REALLY believe in what you do that counts.