Creating Your Facebook Page

Considering that Facebook attracts a number of people from different walks of life, it can be considered as a great marketing channel for different kinds businesses like restaurants, ecommerce sites, media or news sites, charities and retailers. And the first step to a successful Facebook marketing campaign is to create the right kind of business page on the site. The key things to consider for creating a Facebook business page include what you intend to achieve via Facebook, the population you are targeting, and how much time and money you intend to spend on it.

When rightly used, Facebook can help different businesses achieve different marketing goals.

How to Market Your Business on Facebook

Here are the things you should do for effectively marketing your business on this social media platform.

Make it Simple, but Effective

Do you know how easy or difficult it is for your customers to find you or like you on Facebook? The goal of having a Facebook business page is to attract as many people to like it as possible, paving way for online word-of mouth marketing. If you want your customers to like you or share your link on Facebook, the basic thing is to make the Facebook buttons and widgets easily accessible to them on your homepage.

Make use of the different plugins that Facebook has to offer, rather than just the "like" button. Use the 'share' button for a stronger impact, use the "subscribe" button if you have a newsletter and the 'recommendations' button for your blog posts, and place them to enable easy access.

Use the Facebook Plugins

There are a number of Facebook plugins that can be used to your advantage. One such feature is 'visible-to-connection', using which you can offer special discount coupons, vouchers, samples and sneak peeks of your upcoming products and events exclusively to your connections on the site. This is great not just to promote your products, but also for attracting more people to 'like' or 'subscribe' to your Facebook page.

Reward Your Fans

Getting people to visit and like your Facebook marketing page is just the first step. If you want them to stay on your page and do what you want them to do, you need to reward them with something special. The best thing to do for this is to create special promotions exclusively for your Facebook connections. The right kind of promo not only makes them loyal to you, but also encourages them to share it with their friends on the network.

Offline Promotion of Your Facebook Marketing Page

No matter how excellent your Facebook page is, you can make it a hit only when your customers know that it exists. So, use the other offline marketing tools and get your existing customers to visit your Facebook marketing page first. That way, you can easily get more 'likes' and make your page popular quickly.

What to Avoid in Facebook Marketing

Doing the right things would be good, provided you don't quash them with the wrong ones. Here are a few mistakes you should avoid for successful Facebook marketing.

Broadcasting/Selling

The first, and perhaps the biggest, mistake in Facebook marketing is selling or broadcasting. Remember that Facebook is one of the most effective tools for word-of mouth marketing. But direct selling can be a major put off and is the best tool to keep away users from your page. So interact, but don't broadcast.

Uninteresting Posts

If you want to get noticed on Facebook, you need to be interesting. But several business owners forget that when it comes to marketing on Facebook. To make your marketing campaign successful, be sure to spend time on updating your page regularly with interesting content that your audience is most likely to read and share. Then again, avoid using "filler" content and being repetitive. This will only make you predictable and boring.

Violating the T&C

Implementing the perfect Facebook-marketing plan in the right way makes the campaign powerful. But even your best laid plans can fail if you remember to do everything, but fail to understand how it actually works. So, before you get started with marketing on Facebook, it is best to spend as much time as you can to explore the site and go through the terms and conditions to avoid violating them. Otherwise, you may end up in the bad books of the site, and lose all opportunities to reach out to a huge audience through it.

Finding the right sources

A direct mailing list can be created with the help of internal and external sources.

• Internal sources include records of existing and past customers, correspondence (queries, complaints) from customers, market survey and research data, sales and warranty records.
• The external sources include websites of the prospective customers (B2B), the paid information database on the internet, yellow pages or local telephone directories, published consumer surveys, trade or industry related directories, and more.

Irrespective of the source you choose, you need to make sure that the list you create is not outdated. Also, it is a good idea to exhaust your internal sources first, before you invest in the external sources. The perfect mailing list should contain the name, title, the existing email address, website, the telephone number and the complete mailing address of the targeted prospects.

Tips for creating an effective mailing list

Once you obtain the required list of prospective contacts, here is how you can make it more effective.

Segmenting the mailing list

The first step to creating an effective mailing list is to segregate the contacts based on certain parameters.

Internal and external lists: The list of contacts you obtain from internal sources would usually be existing customers, or those who you have contacted at least once in the past. This list can be divided into three categories

• Customers who spend at least a certain amount on your products every year
• Customers who have made a purchase from your in the last six months
• Ex-customers, who have purchased your products in the past

The external lists that you buy or rent are usually segregated by the name, title, or telephone numbers. You can further segregate and structure these lists in different ways, to create a highly precise direct marketing mailing list.

Geographic: One of the most common ways to segment a mailing list is to define the area that you intend to target. This is especially when the product or service you are offering is available only for customers in a particular region. Geographical segmentation can be done according to state, city, zip code or specific areas within a certain radius.

Demographic: In case of B2C marketing, where you target individual consumers, you can segment your mailing list according to their demographics. The parameters you can consider for demographic segmentation include:

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Marital status
• Ownership of home, vehicle and other consumer durables
• Profession or job
• Spending habits
• Status of insurance
• Interests and preferences in brands
• Leisure and vacation activities

While age, gender and income may be commonly used parameters, you can add customized parameters to filter out the best prospects, depending on the kind of product or service you are promoting.

B2B segmentation

In case of B2B mailing list segmentation, you can consider parameters such as the type of business, size of the company and the workforce, yearly expenditure, frequency of purchase, average order size, purchasing location etc of the businesses you want to target.

By segmenting the mailing list, you make it easier to filter out the most profitable prospects and can also create customized content to make the campaign target-based and more effective.

Validating the list

The next step is to validate the segmented lists for accuracy. This includes:

• Removal of duplicate or multiple entries of contacts, usually mentioned in different ways
• Updating the incomplete addresses, or removing incomplete contact details if needed
• Verifying the validity of the available information (checking if the prospect actually resides in the same house, and has the same mobile or phone number etc)

The final mailing list should be further refined with updated information about the prospective customers, and the replies you receive from them. The existing mailing list should also be updated regularly, with a new list of prospective contacts you receive from the sales team and from other sources.

Follow rules and regulations

The basic rule for creating and managing direct mailing lists is to ensure adherence to the law and regulations that govern usage of personal data. So, once you have the data of the prospects you wish to target, ensure that it is used properly. This includes being transparent about how and why the data is being used, and allowing individuals and firms access any data about them that you hold. Also, the legislations and the regulations must be kept in mind if you wish to commission your direct mailing list to other organizations.

Constructing effective business tweets is much more than just telling your followers to buy your stuff, or exclaiming how great your product or service is. Most of the time, the content you post should benefit your readers, give them something of value, and be interesting.

Here are a few tips to help use Twitter for your business and create interesting business-related tweets that your audience will gravitate towards.

Re-Tweet Other Valuable Posts

One of the easiest ways to update your Twitter business content is to simply re-tweet relevant posts. Be sure you follow other valuable Twitter accounts within your industry and monitor that content. You'll be surprised at how often you like what another business has to say about an important and relevant topic.

Take advantage of those great business tweets and re-tweet them, maybe with a brief thought of your own attached to it.

You can also re-tweet something your customers say. Perhaps in 140 characters a customer shouts your praise or even posts a link to a picture with your product. Feel free to re-tweet those as well. There's no harm in sharing a customer testimony.

Create Shortened URL Links

There will be times you will want to include a link to other websites within your tweet. One of the best Business Twitter tips to come around is the invention of the shortened URLs.

Use a service such as Bit.ly or TinyURL.com. These free services can provide you with valuable service that helps you shorten, share, and even track your links. Simply paste a longer URL into their appropriate field, click "shorten," and you turn a lengthy URL into a manageable character length to help you add more valuable small business Twitter content with each post.

Link to a New Article on Your Website

Of all Twitter tips, one of the most used is the simple link to a new blog post or article on your website. Even after you have posted your new article on your own website, that becomes valuable small business Twitter content.

Shorten that blog URL and update your small business Twitter account with a brief teaser. You'll want to post the link more than once, but don't over do it. Perhaps a few times a day for a few days could spark the interest of your various followers. That way, if a follower missed it, she can catch your post the next day.

Link to an Outside Article

Don't forget to share other interesting articles or blogs. Part of your Twitter tips list is to monitor the Internet for content pertinent to your industry. Use Google updates to give you a notice when something of importance is newly published on the web. When you find something you think your customers and followers would like, shorten that URL and post it on your business' Twitter account.

Post a Quote

Using your handy famous quote guide, or even an easy-to-find quote resource on the web, look for famous quotes that pertains to your industry. It could be a little ditty about business innovation from Thomas Edison or motivational quotes from Tony Robbins, decide what your audience would respond to the most. The best Twitter tips policy is to always attribute the quote to the individual, of course.

Ask a Question

When using Twitter for business purposes, one of the best content ideas to hit the Twitter fields is simply posing a question to your followers. A question not only gives you great intellectual content, but it stimulates discussion and replies from your followers.

You might ask for opinions on a recent news article. Ask how they have used your product recently or even what they would like to see improved upon.

Small business Twitter content in the form of a question helps you monitor results, see who is reading your updates and posts, and how many replies and re-tweets you get.

However, there are small business SEO methods that could work to your disadvantage. Be advised that many website owners have tried sneaky or tricky search engine optimization strategies and have suffered dearly with the resulting fallout.

What are some of the possible results of doing things search engines hate?

• Your site will be poorly ranked - Not the worst outcome, but if you do not employ sound small business SEO strategies, your website could suffer low rankings on certain keyword or search terms.
• Your site won't be found - One possible outcome is that your small business SEO won't be successful at all. Your website will not be categorized or logged properly by the major search engine "bots", and your ranking will not appear in search results.
• Your site could get sandboxed - Don't think that major search engines won't exclude you altogether. Google is notorious for finding culprits of sneaky small business SEO tactics and banning them from search results altogether.

So what is it that search engines hate most? Here are the top 8 most despised small business SEO methods.

1. Duplicate Content

   The biggest crime in the eyes of search engines is duplicate content, which is text that has been plagiarized from another website. Too many small business owners make the mistake of copying and pasting text from another resource, rather than writing their own unique content. The result is that your website simply won't appear in the search results. Make sure your web content is 100% unique to avoid being lost in the search engine abyss.

2. Flash

   Flash is an animation format released by Adobe, and it is one of the most popular formats for introducing short animated vignettes on a website. Even some video formats are using Flash.

   However, Flash does not provide any helpful content information that will help a search engine rank your website. If you use Flash, keep it as just a visual part of your website and not the entire web page of content.

3. Splash Pages

   Having a cool animated "splash" page can make a good impression on your visitors and customers. However, an animated "introduction" to your real website content does not get past search engines. Plus, extra time and clicks can easily turn off some visitors. Avoid losing visitors and improve your small business SEO rankings without the use of a splash page.

4. Old Content

   A website that has not been updated with fresh content is not good search engine optimization and does not impress search engines. Keep your small business website fresh with regularly updated content and new page publications of relevant keywords.

5. Image Maps

   An image map is dividing a graphic or image into different clickable links. While this can be great for your visitors, image mapping does not provide any anchoring keywords for search engines to latch onto. If you must use image maps and clickable images, be sure to use captions and <alt> tags to define the image in small business SEO keywords.

6. Keyword Stuffing

   A search engine hates nothing more than a website that "stuffs" massive amounts of keywords to trick it into thinking the site offers something relevant. Websites that get caught stuffing hundreds of keywords on a page with the purpose of trying to jerry rig or skew results could get quickly banned.

7. Hiding Keywords

   Similarly to keyword stuffing, hiding keywords within your HTML coding is also poor small business SEO, and it could have the same sandboxing results.

8. Cloaked Landing Pages

   Scurrilous web designers will try to trick a search engine by designing a relevant web page with all the appropriate keywords, but quickly redirect a visitor to another website that is completely unrelated. This is called "cloaking" a website and can quickly get a website fully banned from Google. Keep your small business SEO legitimate and present a website that a visitor expects when they click a link.

Inbound links are found on other websites that point their visitors to your website. Google has made it clear that this type of "recommendation" from other websites is important to their algorithm system. Thus, inbound links should be a major part of your small business SEO strategy.

However, not all inbound links are created equal. A link to your site from a small web page that gets 5 hits a week is low priority in Google's eyes - but so is a inbound link from a large website that contains totally unrelated content and completely different keywords and terms. Especially since the last Panda update, who points to your website can make a tremendous difference in whether your website is categorized as first-page quality or spam.

A good inbound link should be:

• Relevant - Google's automated 'bots' like to know that the website providing the inbound link is related to your industry and keywords.
• High traffic - A website with high traffic volumes will pull more weight with Google and thus rank your inbound link higher.
• High rank - A website with a high page rank in Google that links to your site will also be the most effective.

Finding and obtaining relevant inbound links may be easier than you think. Here are a few of the best methods to get your inbound link list growing:

Link Your Blog to Your Website

First of all, you should focus your small business SEO internally. If you have a small business website on one domain and a blog on another, that is a perfect opportunity for linking.

Your company blog should link to your small business website domain on the main page. Your blog is also a good place to slip that link in to each blog update or post you publish. Strategically use keyword anchor text to link back to your website to help you appear in the results for your top keywords.

Include Links On Your Social Media Profiles

Your social media accounts are another great way to improve your small business SEO with inbound links. Most social media sites allow you to create a profile page and include one or two links. Use them wisely. If you can, always include links to both your company website and your company blog.

Encourage Social Media Followers to Repost

Write and post occasional social media updates that include a link to your website or blog. Note that this shouldn't be practiced on EVERY update, but that you can link back to your own sites whenever you publish relevant, useful, and interesting content. When you do, encourage your followers or fans to re-tweet or share with their friends so the links gets spread virally.

Many SEO experts believe that since the Panda update, the weight of social network sharing and backlinks has become more important than ever. Thus, backlinks and activity from the social networks could be boosting your SEO more than most other strategies.

Write Articles for Other Sites, But NOT Article Databases

Previously, writing articles for the directories was a prudent way to build backlinks. However, since the last Panda update, most all of the major directories have been stripped of their PageRank, and links pointing out of the article directories have been considered spam.

Consider instead taking the initiative to contact industry-relevant blogs and resources, and ask if you could have an opportunity to be a guest author. You can pitch ideas for articles and back up your expertise with your credentials. Writing articles is still a fantastic strategy for building backlinks, but you only want to be published in industry-relevant, high quality websites.

Many SEO link building strategies have changed since the Panda update, but with the growing weight of the social networks, link building is perhaps easier now than ever before.

Here are a few trade show tips that will give you an edge at your next showing:

Booth Design

During small business trade shows, you want to grab the attention of attendees and participants. While your product is the star of the show, a well-designed booth is the stage for your showpiece.

Whether you build your booth space yourself on a budget or pay a specialty shop to construct your booth, keep these elements in mind:

• Walls - First, be sure to color coordinate with all booth elements, starting with the walls. Your walls could be heavy-duty cubical material, or simple cloth stretch between PVC piping. Keep the color warm and inviting.
• Banners - Include graphic banners for your booth display. A banner with your name and logo is great, but to stand out at small business trade shows, include graphic banners and displays with photos of your product, people enjoying your product, etc. Make them full color and put these at eye level to attract attention.
• Tablecloths - A trade show will likely provide you with a table or two, and maybe even a plain tablecloth. But you should bring your own that complements your color scheme. White is the trade show tips top choice because it highlights the objects on top of it.
• Flooring - Likely the trade show will be on concrete flooring. If possible, bring your own flooring. It could be carpet squares, fiberboard, or even a cloth flooring. A brighter color is also recommended, as it will help reflect light and brighten your booth.
• Lighting - As well, small business trade shows will likely provide plenty of shadowy overhead fluorescent lighting. Consider bringing your own light stands to project spotlights on targeted areas on your display.

Use Interactive Displays

During small business trade shows, you will attract more customers with interactive displays. It could be a sample of your product that people can handle and touch, a cooking display, or even an iPod monitor where folks can use the touch screen to go through a quiz, an interactive PowerPoint, or display product photos.

Don't Forget The Giveaways

At small business trade shows, be sure to help people who stop at your booth remember your product. Provide them with product samples, business cards, pens, magnets - whatever you think can make an impression and carries your business name and logo.

Stock Up on Brochures and Order Forms

You don't want to run out of literature at small business trade shows. Bring enough brochures and product information sheets to pass around.

Likewise, if you plan to take orders at small business trade shows, always keep enough order forms on hand.

Cookies!

Of all the trade show tips available, one secret to almost assuredly get people to stop by your booth is to have a small basket of cookies available. It could be name brand like Oreo, maybe Girl Scout cookies, or homemade cookies. Cookies are hard to pass by and can be that simple trick that makes a passerby say, "oh, cookies! What else do you have here?"

Have Backup Attendants

Trades shows typically run long hours, usually from morning until evening. It is unfair and unwise to ask any single person to have sole responsibility of attending your small business trade show booth the entire time.

Among the smartest of trade show tips is to be sure you bring backup. At least two people should attend. That way, one person can attend to the booth to meet and greet, while the other can walk the floor, do competition research, attend the seminars, or network.

The key to small business trade shows is to have someone on duty to answer questions, do demonstrations, and take orders at all times.

While there are many different varieties of social media, Twitter is a must for any small business. The sheer number of Twitter accounts means that a small business can acquire a potential barrelful of followers. And through hashtags, a small business can go from a few hundred followers to reaching millions via the viral aspect of Twitter hashtags.

What is a Hashtag?

A hashtag is like a keyword. On Twitter, a keyword can be found by using the hashtag mark "#" in front of the word. For instance, if you were writing about eco-friendly marketing strategies and wanted the keyword "Green Marketing", simply create it in hashtag form, #GreenMarketing. This makes the keyword searchable topic on Twitter and can be found and read by potentially millions of Twitter searchers.

How does a small business utilize hashtags in a Twitter social media strategy? Here are a few tips:

Keep up with Hashtag Trends

It is important to know what hashtags are trending on Twitter. Before you can make good use of a potential hashtag, you must know if it is a popular topic.

However, since Twitter is a giant worldwide database of hashtags, how do you know what is trending at any given time, or even if a certain keyword is of interest? Luckily, there are 3rd party websites that are aimed at providing hashtag data. Here are a few of the more popular ones.

• WhatTheTrend.com - Here you'll find data on what hashtags are trending right now on Twitter.
• Hashtags.org - This site can give you categorized list of trending hashtag topics.
• Twubs.com - This helps people connect on certain aggregated popular topics.
• Tagal.us - This resource can help define vague or other hashtag phrases.

Choose Strategic Hashtags for Your Niche Products/Services

With your hashtag intel, you have the tools to choose the trending words and phrases that work with your products. However, you should avoid using general hashtags. Consider the strategy of avoiding utilizing general and overused keywords on your website. Search engines find too many other websites with general keywords, and your search results get lost in the millions of results.

Much like an SEO website strategy, choose hashtags that are relevant to your business, but are not so general that it would be futile to try and compete against larger and more prominent tweeters.

Create Your Own Hashtags

Why not create your own hashtags? You use hashtags to build your company's reputation on Twitter and establish trends of your own. To decide on a hashtag, you must consider something that is memorable. Remember to keep it short. Phrases are usable, but only if they are short enough to include with a 140 character tweet.

With your hashtag chosen, start using it. Promote it frequently, and encourage your followers to use your hashtag and re-tweet as well. You could even encourage followers to use your hashtag to win a random contest for a gift certificate.

Respond To Your Hashtags

Don't make the mistake of starting a hashtag trend and ignoring it. Be sure you monitor your hashtag retweets and usage. Make use of the hashtag trending site mentioned above. A favorable response to others can help keep followers loyal and add new ones to your roster.

Hashtag At Conferences and Events

Keep your Twitter followers abreast of where you are right now and why it's important. For instance, if you are a small brewpub owner and are at a local ale festival in Portland, you might post frequent tweets with the hashtag #Portlandalefestival.

Or similarly, if you are at a popular conference show, you can demonstrate your presence. A popular trending event may be the #ConsumerElectronicsShow, or just #CES to fit a 140 character tweet.

The proper use of hashtags on Twitter can be beneficial to your small business. The viral aspect of hastags could even get your small business known around the world. But be sure you choose them wisely and use them sparingly.

However, one thing is for sure; once you've chosen your social media platforms, it is not enough to simply create accounts and hope your audience joins you by the throngs. That works about as well as opening a mom-n-pop store somewhere in the middle of a city and hanging out your proverbial shingle, hoping customers will randomly walk in your door.

Instead, your social media strategy needs to have a provision for engaging your audience and keeping them engaged. Here are a few "best practice" tips:

Getting Readers Engaged

To make a social media strategy work, you need to get your audience engaged in what you have to say. Here is some advice:

Be Helpful

Don't be shy about offering advice, or even promoting your products or services on social media. Remember, marketing is all about showing your target customer your answer to a problem. You must show how your product/service solves their problem and benefits them.

Using your social media strategy, find those conversations that pertain to your business or industry. You might do a search on Facebook, look for Twitter hashtags, or even monitor your comments on your company blog. When you find a conversation where people are discussing a problem that you know your company can solve, jump in and add your two cents.

Don't be overtly salesman-like. But rather briefly and tactfully explain how your product could be beneficial in reference to the topic.

Ask Questions

Asking questions is a proven social media strategy winner. Asking questions lets your audience know that you are interested in their opinion. And believe it when we state that social media is a platform where people like to express their opinions.

Questions might be in regards to your product or responses to a recent industry news story. Or perhaps people are even just inquiring what people are doing on a rare sunny day.

Answer Questions

Don't forget to answer questions as part of your social media management strategy. If someone, whether or not they be a current fan, follower, or customer, asks your social media account a question, oblige them and provide an answer. This also helps stimulate further discussion.

Keeping Readers Engaged

And while engaging your audience is a sound social media strategy, keeping them engaged is the trick. Here are some suggestions to keep your social media audience focused on your small business.

Positive Reinforcement

Never fail to thank your commenters for their input. Knowing that their opinions are valued and that someone actually reads what they have to say helps reinforce their position as a valued member of your social community.

Make Commenters/Responders Feel Important

Another way to provide positive reinforcement is by making your followers and commenters feel important. This form of social media management puts the proverbial ball in your audience's court.

You might ask your readers what they think about a new product you just released. Or even how to improve a current product. Publish a survey and let your readers know that their input is valued and exclusive.

You can also help them feel important by responding to complaints. If a reader posts a negative comment about an experience with your product or service, thank them for their input and address the issue.

Provide Good Follow Up to Hot Topics

Once in a while, you may find that a particular thread of comments and responses will last longer than the norm. In some cases, readers may comments for months on a single blog post or social media update. Keep that type of engagement going by following up and adding a few logs to the fire

Your social media management plan is your key to a successful and profitable social media marketing strategy. Keep these tips in mind about stimulating discussion and keeping your audience engaged, and you'll likely notice a better bottom line.

Small business social media marketing, while now a widely accepted and practiced marketing technique, has not been fully embraced by most US small businesses. Effective social media strategies are still in development, small business social media marketing has irregular results, and some believe there are too many risks involved.

How do you successfully join the social media networks and connect with potential markets with your social media posting? Here are some practiced tips that have proven to show results.

1. Learn How to Step Into Conversations

   Social media is so named because it allows people to come together and interact. Will you join them? Or will you end up "lurking" behind the scenes? While the word 'lurk' may have some negative connotations associated with it as a person who 'sneaks' around secretly and unperceived, lurking is now a common reference to someone who simply observes online discussions without participating.

   While constant lurking will not get you very far toward your small business social media marketing goal, you can observe discussions and jabber until you find the opportune time to join in.

   For instance, say you just arrived at a party, grabbed a beverage, and jumped into a small group and immediately took over conversation. You've interrupted an established and active conversation, and now you have made a poor impression. At that point, it would not be surprising to watch the others simply raise an eyebrow and find another place to converse.

   However, say you grabbed that beverage, took some sips, observed the different conversations going on, and found one that interested you. You casually blended in with the group, and at a clear and opportune opening, you joined the conversation and successfully contributed to the group dynamic.

   That is exactly how you want to approach your social media. Don't start right off the gate by proclaiming loud and obnoxious statements about your business or product. No one wants to listen to a pushy commercial.

   Here are some additional tips for successful social media posting:

   • Monitor topics - Use tools from Twitter and Facebook to track trending discussions and topics. You can find great keywords that pertain to your business where you can join the conversation.
   • Look for responses - Use your "listening" skills to observe which topics and posts receive the most attention. If your business social media marketing strategy is pertinent to the conversation, by all means join in.
   • Check for Repeated Topics - If a certain topic comes up again and again, it may be a good sign that you could use it to segue your voice into the discussion.

2. Social Media Etiquette

   Social media posting requires extreme tact and proper etiquette. Keep these points in mind with your social media posting:

   First, you should abide by the rule of content. Make sure that your social media postings contain content that excites your target market and creates interest and engagement.

   Your social media posts should be on the side of subtlety rather than "in your face. That means using tact, and avoiding using ALL CAPS when you post.

3. Remember Your Goal: Making Money

   Keep in mind that your social media marketing plan is not to make friends and gain followers, but to help you make money. Ultimately, while avoiding pushy sales posts, you should write posts and updates that reminds readers how they can benefit from your product or service.

4. Remain Professional

   When it comes to small business social media marketing, you want to present an appearance of professionalism. Keep your social media posting efforts business-like. That means avoiding getting personal with your followers, posting inappropriate pics of you, your staff, or customers, and refraining from trash-talking your competition. Act how you would in front of your best customer, and you will be able to traverse the etiquette of social media well.

To help you form your small business blog comment policy, we provide you with a few tips below:

Blog Commenting - Allow or Not Allow?

The first thing you must decide about your small business blog is whether to allow readers to comment on your blog or disallow comments altogether. Disallowing comments gives you full control over the content seen on your business blog and will provide you with no worries about discussions, good or bad, on your blog. But how do you know if your readers like the content?

Allowing comments can not only give you a better picture on who is reading your blog and provide you with valuable target market data, but it also encourages them to return to read new posts, or even to read responses to their comments.

Should You Moderate Your Business Blog?

If you decide that allowing comments is the right thing to do for your small business blog, then the next step is to decide whether or not to moderate comments as they come in.

Moderating means that the blog owner has a chance to read and review all comments, and decide to publish the comment or delete it. Moderating has plenty of pros and cons. Here are a few:

• Pro - You get 'first glance' at all comments and can publish the ones that are most constructive or flattering.
• Con - Editing or pick-n-choose comment moderation can be seen as censorship and could make you appear to be a dictator of your small business blog comments.
• Pro - Readers can get true first-hand stories and customer testimonies.
• Con - Readers could choose not to buy your product based on negative comments
• Pro - You show that you are reaching out and getting in touch with customers.
• Con - You could get spam comments from nasty online marketers.

Spam comments are usually "cloaked". That is, you might get an original comment like "great article!" but there will be a promotional link to his website in the comment itself. Or a comment might even spout a bit about his product. In the worst-case scenario of comment spamming, an auto "bot" will simply leave unwanted marketing messages in a comment on your site. You may have seen these scattered through blogs you read, promoting fake Rolex watches or infamous sexual virility pills.

Due to the potential for spam, especially if your small business blog gets regular updates, more traffic, and better rankings on search engines, moderating comments may be the best choice.

Handling Negative Comments

Understand that if you allow comments on your business blog, you will likely receive negative ones in addition to positive ones.

Also, keep in mind that the internet is populated with individuals whose sole aim is to smear negativity wherever they roam. These people are usually labeled "trolls" and will write negative blog comments and responses that are not constructive, flattering, nor appropriate. For this reason it may be a good idea to moderate your business blog so you can filter the 'troll' comments.

However, there is some good in publishing negative blog comments. Here are a few strategies when faced with them.

• Is the negative comment constructive? - A negative comment may be constructive. The individual may be giving you feedback that can help you improve your product or service, or even help you avoid mistakes in the future.
• Ignore it? - You could publish negative comments and choose to ignore them. This may be a good strategy to avoid getting into a heated debate.
• Let others respond. - You may not have to respond. Your loyal readers and customers may come to your aid and protect your honor with their own responses.
• Respond diplomatically. - If you do respond, be diplomatic. Always use a positive tone, acknowledge the commenter's opinion, and clearly and tactfully state your position and rebuttal.
• Responding directly to negative commenter. - And finally, if the negative comment is constructive enough and you feel it warrants individual attention, consider writing and communicating with the negative commenter directly by email. This may create a constructive dialogue that will help you solve problems and could help you gain a loyal customer.