Tag: Facebook

What Every Small Business Owner Ought To Know About Facebook Marketing

Small-business-facebook-marketingOver the past few weeks I have been working with a company, helping to improve their website and get them familiarized with using social media to increase their sales and visibility. After setting up a Facebook page, the owner asked me three specific questions.

  1. What is the main benefit of having a lot of “likes” on Facebook?
  2. How can I utilize Facebook for marketing?
  3. How can I advertise my Facebook page so others can find me?

I thought these were excellent questions for any small business owner just starting out on Facebook to know. So I am sharing my email response, in the hopes that you find it helpful and it encourages you to jump on the Facebook bandwagon.

Success Stories: Eight Questions with Rachel Epperson, Owner of The Needle Shop

In this installment of Success Stories I talked with Rachel Epperson, owner of The Needle Shop located in the Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown.  Rachel uses Facebook, Yelp, and Flickr to promote her business.  She is also expanding into a blog later this month.  Read below to find out how she uses social media to grow her DIY sewing school and fabric store.

1.) Why did you first start utilizing social media for your business? How did your store change from before Facebook, Yelp, Flickr etc. to after you started using them?

I was on Facebook like everyone else and it came up a lot in class.  …

Now You Can Build Your Brand Using Sweat Equity

Sweat-EquityCompanies put a lot of money and expertise into building their brand — finding the perfect advertisement, designing that logo that will make you thirsty, hungry, tired, awake, sweaty, funny etc.  It is a rich man’s game, and the more money you have, the bigger brand you can build.  Or at least that used to be the case.  But not anymore.  Now building a brand is a game anyone with time, drive, and perseverance can play.

Thanks to the world of social media, building a brand is currently as much about sweat equity as it is about money.  Does money help? …

Success Stories: Eight Questions With Mari Luangrath, Owner Of Foiled Cupcakes

In this installment of Success Stories, I interviewed Mari Luangrath, owner of Foiled Cupcakes, about her social media usage.  Foiled Cupcakes sells cupcakes exclusively through their website and delivers them all throughout the Chicago area.  Mari is a champion of Twitter and Facebook and estimates 90% of her business comes from social media.

1.)  How did you begin using social media?

I started using Facebook a few years ago, just for personal use. And I hopped onto Twitter totally by accident. Over dinner, a friend said, “Hey, Twitter might be really good for you to launch your new business. Have you heard of it?”…

Social Media Glossary

Social-media-glossary

Social media terms are numerous and changing all the time.  There are probably thousands of words whose only purpose is to describe some aspect of social media.  Here are the ones I think will come in handy to know as a newcomer, although I may have gotten a little overzealous and included a few for the more advanced social media user.  Think of those as extra credit.

Bit.ly Bit.ly will shorten your URLs and also track stats on them.  This is used a lot on Twitter to help condense long URLs so as not to take up too many of your 140 characters.

Top Ten Social Media Myths

top-ten-social-media-mythsHere are the top ten myths I hear on a daily basis as to why businesses are not jumping on the social media bandwagon.  They’re mostly just excuses, and I’m here to dispel as many of them as I can.

1.)   Social media takes too much time

You control the amount of time you spend on social media.  You should be able to get away with spending 30 minutes to an hour a day and have an extremely effective campaign.  That said, some days you won’t have ten minutes and others you may spend a few hours.  But you’re in  control. …

Success Stories: Nine Questions With Michael Farah, Owner Of Berry Chill Yogurt

Berry-Chill-LogoWelcome to the first post of a new series: Success Stories. I am interviewing businesses that are using social media as all or part of their marketing plan.  My first interview is with Michael Farah, owner of Berry Chill, an all-natural yogurt store with several Chicago locations.  Berry Chill has a constant social media presence, and exclusively uses social media to market themselves.  Just how does Farah use social media for his business?  Read below to find out.

1.)  How did you begin using social media?

I started out in the social media world through personal use and decided to start using it for my business too. …