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Using Twitter for Local Businesses

Twitter is a great place to connect with prospects and customers, but is Twitter practical to use for local selling businesses versus national selling businesses? My answer is yes, Twitter is a great place for national and local selling firms.

It is very important to know that the user demographics are changing on Twitter. It used to be that Twitter users were typically in the field of marketing and were between the age of 30 to 55. Now, there is a much wider use of Twitter and use by a wider age range.

So how can a local selling business use Twitter successfully? Using location focused tweets with hashtags (# used in front of a single keyword or phrase without spaces) can help to build information on your category of business that can be used for Twitter searches. For example, if you are a Chinese restaurant located in Waldorf, Maryland, your tweets could mention #Waldorfchinese, #ChineseRestaurantWaldorf, or #chineseWaldorf within the tweet. By using your business category and location you can reach potential customers who may be using Twitter on their mobile phone while they are out and about.

Another interesting trend that I am seeing, if you are an online store, is when you tweet coupon codes you can boost website sales directly. We’ve recently done a holiday promotion for an online citrus seller and the sales generation with Twitter has been stronger than the sales generation using Facebook. Others in my industry have shared with me that they are also seeing an increase in lead generation with Twitter versus Facebook as well.

With the ability to use location hash tags, Twitter can be a great place for local selling businesses to connect and drive online and offline traffic.

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What Can You Expect With Google Places

Claiming your Google Places page for you business is a very good idea, but what can you expect after you claim your page?

Just because you claim your Google Places page does not mean that your Places page will automatically appear in local search and Google Maps results immediately. It is important to know that Google sometimes has as long as a four week delay before your Places page appears regularly in the search results.

I have found that it takes time for your Google Places page to appear, once set up your page will not be shown automatically the first day you update your account. Sometimes you may wait as long as four weeks before your page appears regularly.

Here are my recommendations for Google Places:

  1. Claim your page.
  2. Add 10 photos and your comments, consider adding a special coupon promotion.
  3. Link to your Google Places page on your blog and in your email signature.
  4. Regularly ask satisfied customers to leave reviews on your Google Places page.
  5. Schedule an update of your page every 30 days. Update your comments and your photos.
  6. Be patient, but be proactive.
  7. If you feel that you are not getting the exposure you want, consider using Google AdWords Express tied to your Google Places page for faster visibility.
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Twitter May Be Better Than Facebook for Your Business

It used to be that I felt that every business should have a Facebook page. With the changes that Facebook has made this past quarter, I am starting to rethink Facebook’s importance and consider that businesses may be better served by a strong presence on Twitter instead.

Although Facebook still owns the social marketplace and is the place that consumers spend a measurable amount of time, Facebook has made it very difficult for a business to establish a vibrant presence easily on their platform. I am finding that new business pages without additional marketing will simply not grow a “like” or fan base quickly or easily.

On Twitter, additional follower numbers can be grown fairly quickly with good updates AND follower interaction. I have seen that updates alone are not the key to growth on Twitter. It is the combination of the manual addition of new followers, creation of lists, and interaction with followers that helps an account to grow and for messages to go viral.

When a follower retweets your status update (that may potentially link back to your blog or your services), your link exposure and potential to reach new customers is tremendous. With regular interaction on Twitter you will find that there are certain people you can really connect with that you can use to reciprocally push out each other’s content. If these Tweeps (Twitter friends) have “klout” (measurable Twitter or social impact) or a larger follower base, the result of clicks in to your content can result in increased traffic and potentially a better SocialRank score.

Both Google and Bing are watching SocialRank and have stated that they will be using this metric in their organic search algorithm. To what degree is SocialRank important to organic placement, that we simply don’t know. What I do know is that with the changes on Facebook, it is by far easier to grow, connect with others, and funnel traffic to your website by Twitter than by Facebook.

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Google Places Has Dropped My Listing – What Do I Do?

I cannot begin to tell you the stories that I have heard about Google dropping Google Places pages and how this has impacted businesses; strangling their local placement and impacting sales from business owners who call us for help. The common thread in all of these stories has been that the business in question has tried to manipulate Google Places results and as a consequence Google has dropped their page or pages – disastrously impacting their business.

First, it is very important to remember that Google Places is a free service. Your Google Places page is created using Google’s free tools. You use the program by adhering to Google’s rules. There is no complaining to Google, no customer service line, and no recourse when you get caught scamming the system.

Frequently this is what I see a business doing that gets it dropped from the Place index:

  • Created multiple pages using addresses that may be rental properties locations, friends’ home addresses, and even corner gas station addresses.
  • Tried to set up a Places page using a fictitious address or old address they have used before.
  • Tried to scam the verification system.

How can you fix a situation where your Places Page has been dropped from the Google index?

  1. If you don’t have a legitimate office location in the area you will never be able to get and verify your Places page. There is no work around, no manipulating that can be done to force Google to set up, verify, and show your Places page.
  2. If you have been dropped due to trying to manipulate placement your only recourse is to delete all Places pages you have created and then set up a Places page again with the correct information.

Often I hear a business owner say, “I don’t want to delete my Places page as I will lose my reviews!” If Google has dropped you from the Places index your page isn’t showing anyway. Understand that reviews are tied to your business name not a Google Places page. Google knows your address not from what you tell it in Google Places set up, but rather from spidering pages about your business from around the Web. There is no fooling Google into thinking that you have a new location when you do not.

Even with a clean set up there is simply no guarantee that Google will show your Google Places page in their index. Remember, this is a free service with the rules and penalties set up and governed by Google on THEIR platform. If you don’t play the game their way, they have every right to exclude your content from their index.