The long-time social question: What social network should my business be on? While having a presence on the right social networks can make all the difference, engaging with your customers in the right way is even more important.

By getting social, businesses often have one or more of the following goals in mind: customer engagement, lead generation, and thought leadership. Small businesses that are looking to stand out from the crowd should spend some time analyzing which customers are the best for their business, but more importantly, what is going to engage them. Read the full entry

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The worlds of social media and SEO are getting more and more intertwined every day. Both Bing and Google have admitted they use social signals and author authority as part of their ranking algorithm.

The Bing-Facebook integration strives to personalize Bing search results with Facebook data, and Google launched their own social network (Google+) to compete with Facebook for social prowess. Read the full entry

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Having employees contribute to your social media profiles can help you expand your outreach, increase your followers, and attract new employees through the positive engagement of your current workforce.

However, this contribution can backfire if you do not have policies and training in place that guide how your employees participate on your pages. SmallBusiness.Chron.com suggests, “A proactive approach to starting official company accounts and managing the content helps you maintain a positive online presence.” Consider these tips before letting employees loose on your social accounts. Read the full entry

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In January, Twitter introduced its newest application, Vine; a mobile video service that allows users to capture and share short, six second, looping videos.

Put simply, a Vine can be considered a tweet in video form. The short videos are meant to inspire creativity, but are they capable of wielding much more in terms of marketing value? We believe that they can.

As a small business owner, it is important to have as many marketing tactics up your sleeve as possible. This free application has many marketers thinking outside of the box for methods to engage their audience. Read the full entry

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In the past, businesses connected with customers through direct mail, phone calls, and in-person conversations regularly. Now, customers are looking for more channels to have their questions answered and aren’t shying away from reaching out to businesses online. Social networks are no different.

More and more, customers want timely responses from brands they reach out to online. Twitter, one of the fastest moving networks, has become one of the major customer service outlets for today’s consumer. Here are three steps you can take now to be more successful with customer service on Twitter. Read the full entry

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Zappos is an online shoe retailer and apparel store that was founded in 1999. Since its founding it has grown to be the biggest online shoe retailer thanks to its excellent customer service and exemplary marketing strategies. Its customer friendly return and shipping policy is one of the key reasons for its impressive success story.

Find out how Zappos used social media marketing to build a strong online brand and what you can learn from it to successfully implement social media strategies for your own business. Read the full entry

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Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be the most local of newspapers, the one we all want to see every time we log on – only the information we care about most.

And that means better content segmentation and improved photo design, optimized for the user. It’s all about what they want to see, and who they want to connect with.

“So you take all these stories, you put them together, and what do you get? A richer, simpler and more beautiful news feed…” – Julie Zhuo, Facebook’s Design Manager Read the full entry

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A social media newcomer and superstar in visual sharing, Pinterest has become one of the most important networks for B2C businesses, especially those in fashion.

Because of this, many B2B marketers may think there isn’t a place for their business on this site where the majority of users are recent college graduates.

However, you need to think again. One study shows that Pinterest accounts for 3.6% of referral traffic. Don’t think that’s a lot? Twitter is just barely ahead of the newcomer at 3.61%. Read the full entry

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According to the SMB Group social media use by small businesses has shifted to 53 percent in 2012, from 44 percent in 2011.

At the same time social media for small businesses continues to be a casual affair and the gap between those who do it with purpose and those who “just post” is widening.

Related:Not sure where to start? Get one of our online marketing vendors to help you out

So how do we close the gap? How can small businesses take a more strategic approach to social media? To start, focus on avoiding three critical mistakes that most small business make. Read the full entry

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Owners of businesses that didn’t start out online sometimes don’t realize how much of a positive impact an engaging online presence can make on their company. In just the last two or three years, the conventional wisdom has gone from, “Maybe we should have a Facebook page” to “How can we use our Facebook page to raise our profile and build up our brand?”

Social media expert Jeff Bullas of JeffBullas.com is a consultant, coach, and speaker who works with companies around the world on optimizing their online presence and building their brand using social media channels. Business.com recently spoke with Bullas about using social networking to help businesses grow.
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