As a web development company working with businesses throughout the country, we get a great deal of questions regarding driving traffic to a website.  Almost always the customer leads the discussion to SEO, and while we think a proper, yet basic, SEO setup is warranted, our belief is that fresh content drives both traffic and indexing.

Participation in blogging, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are far less expensive than both ongoing SEO work and traditional advertising and have the potential to quickly reach exponentially more people, yet we still hear the following reasoning NOT to participate:

1.  ”We are too busy.”

(Response:  That’s great, especially in this economy, but if you’re busy, your competition has taken notice, and is doing EVERYTHING they can to take business away from you, EVERYTHING.)

2.  ”We don’t know anything about computers.”

(Response:  Business is dynamic.  It is no longer sufficient to open a local brick and mortar business, and hope for the best.  Be proactive, learn what to do–blog about the passion you feel for your business.  If you have an antique store, blog and video blog about your passion for the pieces in your shop.  If you own a restaurant blog and Twitter about your specials and anything going on such as live music–I promise you, your customers want to know!)

3.  ”Our customers are not online.”

(Response:  If your customers are seniors, they are the fastest growing demographic online, and, as they move into retirement, their children and those taking their positions at companies that may be your clients, are online.)

4.  ”I tried Twitter and had only 8 people following me.”

(Response:  Social Media Marketing is a long-term investment.  You cannot be online for a couple of weeks and expect major changes, yet time invested will have a lasting effect.)

5.  ”I don’t like Facebook.”

(Response:  Facebook recently crossed the 350 million person threshold.  Your customers are there, if you don’t connect to them there–someone else will, that’s for sure!  And while you are considering spending a few thousand dollars to create one of those awful local cable TV advertisements, you could spend a fraction of that money to advertise via pay-per-click on Facebook in only your geographic area, and reach far more people.)

As a reader of this blog, what are your thoughts about businesses using Social Media to market themselves?  Do you have questions about getting started, or have you had some specific success or failures?

Your input and thoughts are welcome.

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix