Small Business Social Media

When commenting on the issue of the hacking of millions passwords of LinkedIns users John Sileo in the Washington Post shares a

LinkedIn - a lesson on internet security for your business.

personal story of how his on line identity was stolen and used (in my mind) a horrific way. It’s ‘there by the grace of God go I’ sort of stuff. John also gives some great tips on what to do after the hack as well as more general advice about on-line security.

Increasingly as both individuals and small businesses owners our web footprint gets larger and larger every day. So my advice is to read this article and act, ignore this to your peril.

LinkedIn – a lesson on internet security for your business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/how-small-businesses-can-avoid-a-data-security-disaster-like-linkedins/2012/06/08/gJQAALjwNV_story.html

There are now so many social media for small business options that many small business owners find it all so overwhelming. If you are one of these, I have found a great post that gives an overview on the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networking sites, long with some basic strategies for using them. But what really caught my attention in the post was the below.

Social Media for Small Business – using Google Alerts

One of the most unusual topics covered and possibly the least known for small business is the use of Google Alerts. Emma from SocialMediaSEO.net writes:

Did you know that this search engine giant has total visits of over 1.5 billion as of May 26, 2012? This figure amounts to approximately 66.81% of all Web visits.

Seeing that plenty of people trust Google for information, you can benefit from it by using all its products. Since you want to leverage the great rewards of social media, setting up and managing Alerts to help you keep track of the following aspects:

Business name – whenever a site mentions it

Competitors – any comment about them

Official website – whoever is talking about and linking to you

New or potential customers – whenever they have enquiries

Industry – whenever there are developments in your field

New products – any feedback about these

Duplicate content – whenever someone copies the information on your site without permission

click here for the full post

Get the picture.

It quite easy to set up a Google alert, just type into Google Alerts into a Google search queru and click on the options provided and away you go. Review the examples from Emma above, though I’m sure you will have some more ideas for your business. Remember to check out the full post for the social media for small business overview

For our free weekly newsletter covering advice, information, tools, videos and more for small business owners, sign up on the right