Some of the most common advice given to new small business owner is that the way to get customers these days is to be a master of social media. Unfortunately, very few resources are actually available for learning how to do that. Today, we spoke to Pamela Clark, founder of Maryland-based web design firm Clark Concepts. Clark helped us understand specifically about how, as a small business owner, you can get started in the world of social media.

ABERMAN: Well, I’m a small business owner. Somebody’s told me I’ve got to be social. What do I have to do?

CLARK: It’s fairly easy for companies and organizations to get started in digital marketing. What is digital marketing? It’s really marketing products or services using digital channels to reach your audience, like advertising on social media, Facebook, Twitter. It really is a way to extend your reach. I believe, especially, it’s very valuable for small businesses who may have a limited marketing budget to really cast a wider net.

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ABERMAN: So, if I’m a small business, what’s my first step? Is it setting up a website, or is it setting up a Facebook page?

CLARK: I would assume you already have a website. If you don’t, absolutely you have to start with that. It’s important, with your website, to keep search engine optimization in mind, SEO. That is what folks will use Google to search with to find your website. So, keywords that people use to find a company like yours.

ABERMAN: So, when you say search engine optimization, and keywords—for somebody who is not familiar, can I do this on my own? Do I need some expert to look at my site and and figure out which words Google likes when it does search?

CLARK: That’s a good question. You can do some research on your own. There is a wealth of information available on Google’s website, where you can do some research on keywords for industries such as yours, businesses like yours. You can even research on what keywords people are using to reach your competitors, which is valuable information.

ABERMAN: So keyword Google search optimization, but that’s basic. So, if you don’t have a website, you just don’t exist, but once you’ve done that, what’s next?

CLARK: So, once you have your website, you want to make sure it’s an effective website. What you want to do there is make sure your information is presented effectively. You’re creating a message that is simple and easy for your potential clients to understand. When somebody reaches your website, they should understand what you do in a couple of seconds. We are a short-attention-span society, and you can’t expect your potential client to do any work to figure out what you do, or figure out what they need from your company. You have to make it really easy for them.

ABERMAN: What do you think about using something like a Wix, which is a service for creating a web page, or a Squarespace? Do you recommend using the templates available there or do you recommend that somebody hire a designer, and spend a little bit of money on it?

CLARK: Again, it goes back to budget. You can get started, if you were really have no marketing dollars, and you have a new business, and you really need to get something out there, you can use one of these website services like Squarespace to put something together pretty easily. They also include some plugins that help with search engine optimization, and things like that. So, it kind of makes it easy for you. When you get to the next level, where you need a full-out strategy for your search engine optimization, long-term goals, and reaching different audiences, and really expanding on that, I would suggest hiring a professional to help you with that.

ABERMAN: I would too, because ultimately, what we’re talking about here is that Google looks at lots of websites. Ultimately, it will pull up the ones that are the most relevant to the search somebody puts in. So, if you’re when dog grooming n Bethesda, you want to make sure that you show up on that first page of results, and there’s an art to doing that. Having the right content on the page, making sure that you have nice pictures, there’s a lot of things that a consultant can help you do.

CLARK: That’s correct. In addition, while you’re thinking about that, and we’re talking about keywords, keep in mind that the keywords that you may use may be different than what your potential audience would use. Your terminology may be different. Sometimes, we’re so in the weeds in our companies, in what we do, we assume that our audience knows what we’re talking about. They may not. So, try to put yourself in your audience’s shoes when you’re putting together these keywords, and make sure those words exist in the content, the text, on your website. Reason being, Google is always changing how catalogs websites in search results, but right now, it’s really looking for the words that exist on your website.

ABERMAN: So, let’s turn our attention now to other channels. You’ve mastered it, you’ve got your website up. Facebook, is that where I go next?

CLARK: What you do next is, you want to establish your strategy. Strategy can be a scary word, but don’t let it be overwhelming. Basically, you want to start with some goals. Is it a certain percentage of sales that you’d like to get through your website? Is it increasing your social media activity? Do you want folks to attend an event? Once you have that, your next step would be to define who that audience is. So, is your audience in a certain industry, or are they all CEOs, pet owners? Then, from there, you can work on clear messaging to reach those audiences.

ABERMAN: So, a business’s social media activity is not like a human, where we just throw stuff up on the web, on Facebook, Twitter, wherever it suits us, to vent, or share a cat photo, or whatever. What you’re saying is that—depending upon who we want to reach, how old they are, where they live, how much they make, various things—Facebook might be the best place, Twitter might be the best place, Snapchat, Instagram, Etsy, it’s just going to depend. And so, what we should make sure people take away, it sounds like, is whatever they choose do next, they must understand that it is not social media like doing it for fun. You’re doing it for a reason.

CLARK: Right. As you mentioned, if your audience, the demographic of your audience, is such that they’re more the professional, the CEO, it may make more sense for you to do your social media advertising on LinkedIn. If they are the pet owner, you want to reach people at home. Facebook may be the avenue that you turn to for that.

What’s really great about the digital marketing opportunities, advertising—whether it’s on social media sites, news sites, other sites that are related to your industry—is that the metrics available are really great in terms of tracking the activity on your advertising. But also, you can really delve down into details. You can delve down into the demographics of your audience. Is it a college graduate, or are they between the ages of 30 and 40? Do they live in a certain geographical area? You can get really specific.

ABERMAN: So, last question for you. We’ve talked about a lot of tactics. Advertising on social media is not an expensive activity. This is in the hundreds to low thousands of dollars, right?

CLARK: No, it’s not. In fact, that’s why I suggest to companies, if you have a very minimal marketing budget, you can start out very easily. You decide how much you want to pay for your for your ads, in terms of how much you’re willing to invest daily. It’s on a daily basis, usually. You can do five dollars a day. We suggest you start at ten dollars a day. And then, maybe do an investment of 300 dollars for a month, and see how it goes. You can stop it at any time. What’s great is that you can also make changes anytime, to content or creative. You’re not locked in.

ABERMAN: If you’re interested in learning more, check out Clark Concepts. If you’re a budding business owner, don’t forget that social media may sound hard, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really useful.

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