Some Thoughts on Local Social Marketing

Monday rise and shine! It is the beginning of new week. To many of us, especially small businesses that maintain relationship with a large group of customers/partners via social media, Monday morning means scheduling new Tweets via Hootsuite, scouring for a rejuvenating article to share on Facebook, or contributing insightful comments on new articles shared by our connections on LinkedIn. The emergence of social media suddenly opens up this immense opportunity to reach out to a much larger audience just by the move of your fingers. It makes keeping in touch easier, more efficient.

Yet, somewhere in this seemingly too-good-to-be-true interconnected world, more and more people start to realize the importance of in-person interactions. On the business level, this means a return to some “traditional” forms of social marketing – namely events where the company, its partners and customers can come together and develop deeper bonds. Not only a meaningful way for people to connect at a more personal level, the beauty of those events lies in their sense of locality. If digital media allow you to reach out to audience on a national, sometimes international, scale, events tend to attract certain geographical groups. In this way, events gives you a chance to create deep relationship with the local community where they are hosted. This is crucial to small, local businesses. 

In this article, Carol Aubitz listed several ways companies can bring social marketing to a more local, intimate level. She also shared ideas about how to make those events engaging, fun, and memorable for those who attend. Certain practices such as product samplings/demonstrations, hosting contests, and linking the event with related social cause can be used to create a lasting impression on the audience.

What do you think about the importance of in-person meeting for businesses? What ideas do you have in terms of connecting with customers and partners in a personal, meaningful ways? Please share with us in the comments section.

 

For more information about how SCORE Lancaster can help you develop your business, please visit us here or give us a call today at  717-397-3092. We are happy to assist you on your way to greatness!