Ghostwriting Services by Robert Britt

Most businesses don’t think about the impact blogging and social media can have on their client base. A well thought out social media marketing plan can help you to get more clients now.

If you are thinking about how to attract new customers to your business you should really consider a blend of social media marketing and consistent blogging. This may seem like overkill to a small business, but the truth is that even small businesses need to spend some money on marketing and advertising and social media marketing can be one of the least expensive ways to get the word out.

Everyone agrees that word of mouth and referrals are the two best ways to get customers. But why do those methods work so well? It’s because your customers have a relationship with you as a person and as a business. That relationship is really what social media marketing is about. A lot of people will try to tell you to “Tweet” or make a Facebook page and do updates, but what do you tell people on those updates?

Most businesses don’t use social media effectively. You need to drive people to take action, and part of that action is either directly making a call for your products or services, or visiting your website and then making that call. So how do you get them to your website? The answer is social media. But what do they find at your website?

Often it is a static homepage and a “contact me” page. If you are a bit more savvy you will have an “about” page that will help people get to know you, but the best thing to building a relationship is to have a blog. People can have the wrong impression of what a blog is. It doesn’t have to be your online diary. It should be a series of articles, updated regularly that conveys useful information to your potential customers. Maybe it even help them “do it themselves” in the case of minor repairs, or explains the use of products like yours.

Blogs shouldn’t be sales pages. They are used to build relationships and help people make decisions on their actions, and maybe give a slight “call to action” as well. If you have a plumbing business maybe you talk about things that indicate issues and how people can avoid costly repairs by catching and fixing problems early. If you have a restaurant, maybe you talk about food and drink pairings or how to prepare simple dishes or give away some of your secrets (but not recipes.)

The whole purpose of the blog is to develop a relationship with potential customers and to get them visiting your website when they think about your speciality, whatever that may be. Social media should be used to give small pieces of the puzzle and direct people back to your website’s blog to get the whole story.

Are you building relationships?

By adding a blog to your website you manage to do three important things at the same time. First you help people with their problems and they begin to view you as the “go to” resource. Second, the more content you have on your website, the higher you climb in the search engine results. That means you are more easily found online. And finally it gives people a reason to bookmark your website and make return visits. All of these build relationships and are ways to attract new customers.

As you can see, I practice what I preach. I blog regularly on all my business sites and I try to give you good information you can use. Of course I would like to have you as a customer as well, writing articles for your blog on a weekly basis, but also managing your social media. These go hand in hand and as a regular customer you get package deals.

Check out this article on Business Week’s website on blogging and social media. It’s not going away. True in 2005, updated constantly and still getting traffic every day. Yeah, it’s part of their blog now.)

Comment, write, ask questions. I will answer them promptly and to everything I can to help you succeed and get more clients.