Social Media for Small Businesses

http://socialmediatrader.com/social-media-marketing-for-small-businesses/

This is an article by Social Media Trader, written in 2008 and it examines the benefits of social media for small business. We felt this would be of assistance in our project because we expect to be working with a smaller hospitatlity business within the Turku area.

"if you want to attract new visitors to your site then you have to actually participate and become involved in the community"

This is becoming increasingly important in this market at this time because of the vast awareness and and use of social media sites like facebook and twitter. It is also important for business to be aware of issues that arise from their product or service because it will be under constant review from the public and may result in either positive or negative feedback. Therefore the company must have a presence within these sites so they can respond quickly and effectively to this feedback.

We have discovered that you must put a large emphasis upon your target audience as these are the people who are going to invest their time and money into your product or service. They are also the ones who influence the content of the product or service that you are providing so it is vital that you, as a company, get this right when you first begin to advertise through the social media sites.

The article also says that a company does not just have to use social media to market their product or service but they can also use more traditional aspects alongside it in order to keep other customer segments aware.