Visibility

Many consumers are learning more about their favorite businesses through social media networking sites.  What does this mean for your local business?  If you are not participating in social media, you are missing a critical way to engage with current and new customers and boost your online identity and visibility.  

Get on Social Networks

The first step to connecting with consumers via social platforms is to create a profile on sites like Twitter and Facebook with your businesses’ Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP). In order to integrate local with social, the most efficient linkage is your NAP as this anchor allows consumers to discover the conversations that are occurring about your business in their geography. If you aren’t familiar with social networking sites, this can be an intimidating process, however, there are many companies and tools that can help with the process, along with various news articles pertaining to the topic.  Check out Mashable if you are just getting started for how-to articles and case studies.

Build a Complete and Accurate Online Business Listing

Structuring your business listing for local search and social media with your Name, Address and Phone Number sounds easy enough, but it is important to validate your listing structure and examine how to disseminate that information for user consumption.  The most important rule of thumb is to use your consumer-facing name, your physical store address and your true phone number, meaning your direct business line, not a call tracking number. Social media can serve as an additional means for retaining loyal customers and attracting new ones, but make sure you have your local search listing foundation set, so you are easily found across the Web. Remember the two go hand in hand.

Maintain a Consistent Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP)

Once you are on Twitter and Facebook, maintain use of a consistent Name, Address and Phone Number – NAP – within your social media profiles to ensure a continous link with your local search business listings. This is very important, since it will allow local search engines to efficiently crawl your business listing, giving consumers the opportunity to find your information quickly on local search platforms. Research shows that many consumers that view an online business listing then visit a brick and mortar location. By linking the real-time conversations taking place about your location with your local search business listing identity, you increase your businesses’ findability as well as take advantage of your customers’ social content creation to spread the messages about what makes your location unique across the Web. You need to be aware of the linkage and create a strategy that combines your local search marketing efforts with social media.

Although it is tempting for businesses with a local presence to modify their NAP to try to promote themselves in a new way across social media and other online media, your NAP should serve as your businesses’ foundation and remain consistent. Without this consistency, many versions, or “identities” will exist for your business location(s), making it a challenge for search engines to find you and making it difficult for consumers to engage with your business, or get a complete view of who you are and what you’re all about.

Don’t Forget a Mobile Strategy

Today, consumers are accessing local search and social media sites through mobile platforms and an exponentially growing number of iPhone applications are making it even easier for businesses to engage with consumers in their local areas. Location-based service like Gowalla, Google Latitude and Foursquare are giving businesses a new way to engage with consumers.  For example, Foursquare brings social, mobile and location together by encouraging users to “check-in” on Twitter via their iPhone with their location.  Businesses can then target these consumers based on their geographic area. With an increased trend of mobile searching on social media sites, it is important to include a mobile strategy when developing business listings.  

In fact, the majority of Twitter usage comes from mobile devices and not surprisingly, ABI Research reports that location-based social networking is expected to be a $3.3 billion market by 2013. With this trend exploding, location-based services will most likely be added to Twitter and Facebook in 2010.

It is essential that as a local business owner you need to make sure you are findable by structuring your NAP consistently for local search business listings and social networks.  Otherwise, you risk targeted consumers missing your listing in search results or via social networks. As more and more consumers engage with your business through social networks, remember to make your listings consistent as they act as your fingerprint across the Web.