Social Media Gone Local

Funny thing happened the other day when I was on the way to a local chamber meeting…

Actually the funny thing is being at a local chamber event to promote local businesses going online and becoming involved with social media.

Most people I speak with have the immediate reaction of, why in the world would I need to be online when I can hook up with all the local businesses I need right here, at this event.

It usually takes me about five minutes to change their mind.

I thought it may be beneficial to share what I say to local businesses, so you may also understand why it is just as important for a local business to be online working the social networks.

Social networking does not have to be global. It is all about your goals. If you have a strictly local business, social networking provides a great platform to connect up with your customers, and even become visible to their local friends.

If you make it your business to connect with the local people in your area, you will find that you become involved at a social level much easier. Especially when you can say, remember we met at the chamber event, or whatever festival you might have attended together. Really it becomes more of an extended introduction to you.

Remember people do business with people, not professions. So it really doesn’t matter what you do, it is more about who you are.

Recently, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem did a study of 100,000 Facebook users to determine how likely they were to send out emails to people that they actually knew. They of course did this through a study of proximity. You can read the entire article here.

As you can see from the graph, the closer people are the more they tend to communicate. Hmmm…must have something to do with doing business with people, not professions.

Can you see why being online and visible is a good thing for a local business? Not only can you gain exposure for you business, you can be available to answer questions about your industry. You can use your status updates to inform and become approachable about you business.

One more little nugget for you to tuck away. If you have a target audience of local people, often times an email introduction can be sent way before you meet in person, a virtual introduction if you will. So, if you have a local business that you are trying to get off the ground, make a few personal virtual introductions to people in your local area.

Okay…I do have one more thing for you. Once you become involved in the online social media, you will see things like “TweetUp.” As frightening as it may sound it is really about those on the social media platform Twitter meeting in person.

See – yet another opportunity to increase your local presence simply because you are involved on a social media platform online.

If you happen to live in the Grand Junction area, and if you also happen to be using Twitter, then you are invited to our local TweetUp. Put a face to a screen name, enjoy some fabulous Trader’s coffee. I’ll be there at 7:30am sharp, and I hope to meet you in person!

Click on the link for more Grand Junction TweetUp details .

Social media is about being social both online and in person. So make your social networking personal and it might just work better for you.