In the previous post we discussed two must-have social media tools every small business needs to use to market their business. We argued that social media marketing provides perfect opportunity to get the marketing exposure without spending lot of money.
Many more social media tools beyond Facebook and Twitter have emerged recently. Some of them have the potential to become next Facebook. We want to explore those tools in this post. By jumping on some of these emerging tools small business owners can get advantage over their competitors and improve their sales and profit at a relatively low cost. They can even compete with their larger rivals by harnessing the power of these tools at an early stage.
YouTube
What is it?
If Facebook is the granddaddy of social media YouTube holds similar position in the world of Internet video. With millions of videos watched by millions of users worldwide everyday YouTube provides perfect opportunity for small business owners to get their word out in a more engaging fashion. YouTube allows anyone to post short videos on anything you can think of.
How to use it?
Small business owners can use YouTube for visual form of communication. This includes things like tutorials on their products, how-to videos and instructions. They can use YouTube to demonstrate their expertise in a certain field by providing guidance and tutorials on topics such as how to do make-up or how to fix leaky faucets.
Home Depot has done a fabulous job of using YouTube to show home owners how to perform home maintenance tasks. This builds customer loyalty and help improve their sales by showing users which Home Depot products they can use to perform the maintenance.
Who should use it?
YouTube lands itself well for the businesses that provide education. Some of the trade businesses such as plumbing, woodworking, etc. can use YouTube to demonstrate their expertise and attract new customers.
Flickr
What is it?
Flickr is to photographs what YouTube is to video. This web site allows users to upload and share their photographs with the users worldwide. You can also use additional functionality such as sharing, geo-tagging and print ordering.
How to use it?
Small business owners can use Flickr to share pictures of their businesses and activities around your businesses with their customers. While you can certainly post pictures on your web site, if you have one, Flickr provides large, worldwide audience along with additional functionality mentioned above that may be difficult to replicate on your web site.
Getty Images is using Flickr to not only showcase pictures from their collection; but also to attract artists to submit their pictures to Getty Images for sale.
Who should use it?
Artists are the perfect candidates for the use of Flickr web site. What can be better than showcasing your art, whether it is photos, drawings and sculptures on Flickr. Event planners can use Flickr to share pictures from the past events to share with their customers.
In the next post we will continue to explore social media tools; particularly the ones that are not yet well-known; but provide great opportunity to small business owners to get ahead of their competitors.
In the meantime, do let us know which tools do you use and how.
