Small Business Marketing - Local Becomes Social

If you are a small business with a retail or at least street-facing presence you are probably already taking good advantage of Yelp, YahooLocal, Citysearch and others. But even businesses like professional services (lawyers, architects, CPA firms, ad agencies, doctors) should be sure to include these sites in their marketing mix. And now is the time to revisit them. As Social Media continues to explode, they are all introducing more SM features that will allow you to create current and fresh content and be even more "findable".

Yelp, is the grandaddy of social media meets local business. If you set up your page awhile back, revisit it and do so frequently, to be sure that it is as robust and current as you can manage. Are there recent picture or videos you can upload? Have you updated services that have come about due to a flagging economy? Take another look and be sure you are maximizing your presence.

Google Local Business Place Pages has just added a status block so you can update your page with immediate messages, links to specials, and other interest generating content in a short-form. Unfortunately, there is no way yet to link that update to Twitter or Facebook or anything else - more work for the poster, but still a great new feature. Another addition: businesses that have been "claimed" by their owners will now feature a badge indicated the credibility of the posting.

Citysearch has just added a social media component to their listings as well. New features from Citysearch: Twitter handles can be added to your account and Citysearch consumers can receive your Tweets Also included will be a link to your Facebook Fan Page so Citysearch consumers can "become a fan" of your business.

Up and comer business directory MerchantCircle has been steadily growing as an online network and business directory for merchants in smaller towns to advertise to consumers. To help Local Businesses get more customers online, they've developed a free local business social network where business owners can promote their business by uploading pictures, writing blogs, publicizing events, creating coupons and newsletters, and connecting with other merchants. MerchantCircle has long targeted its site's features towards merchants versus catering towards the consumer, as sites like Yelp and CitySearch do. Last month, the network has hit a milestone by signing up its one millionth merchant. Not too shabby for the business directory, considering there are an estimated 15 million local merchants in the U.S. today.

Local Social, or Geo-Social is becoming a new hot topic with more applications available daily. Keep your eyes peeled for more in the future.