This document provides 10 tips for small businesses using social media: 1) Identify the best social media sites for your business; 2) Plan your objectives and time commitment; 3) Integrate social media into your overall marketing rather than relying on it alone; 4) Actively engage on the social media sites you use; 5) Interact with your audience rather than just sending sales messages; 6) Include links to your social media on all marketing materials; 7) Tell people you're on social media to spark conversations; 8) Focus on quality over quantity of audience; 9) Review your efforts to see if you're meeting your objectives; 10) Ask the author questions on their social media sites.

1. Top Ten Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

2. 1. Before you start with Social Media - identify which social networking sites are going to be best for you as an individual and as a business. There are 1000’s of Social Media sites that can be used and every businesses needs are different! Facebook – Facebook Places - Linkedin – Twitter – Foursquare – You Tube – Blogger – Empire Avenue – Google + - Flickr - Myspace – Bebo – Forums – Stumbleupon – Tumblr – Digg – Delicious – etc!!!

3. 2. Once you decide that Social Media is right for you, sit down, identify your objectives, plan how it is going to be used and the time you will dedicate to it. Generate exposure for your business Increase traffic to website or through the door! Create business partnerships Reduce overall marketing costs Improve sales

4. 3. Don't start off with Social Media thinking it will replace all of your other marketing methods. Social Media needs to be integrated into your marketing strategy rather than being a stand alone tool. If your objective is to drive traffic to your website, make sure your ‘call to actions’ are clear so that you can convert visitors to customers!

5. 4. If you're going to be on Social Media - then BE ON Social Media!! Don't just set up the Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin accounts and assume they will magically work on their own! USE THEM!!!

6. 5. Keep the 'social' in Social Media! It's all about engaging, interacting and having conversations with your current and potential audience.

7. 6. Avoid constant sales messages You wouldn't walk into a room full of business people and simply start shouting sales messages. Would you? REMEMBER: This is on-line networking!

8. 7. To start attracting an audience to your social networking sites, place links to them all on all marketing materials where you would usually advertise your website including: Email signatures - Business Cards - Links on your website - Leaflets & brochures – Pull up banners

9. 8. And tell people that you're on the social media sites - it can be a great conversation starter!

10. 9. Remember Quality is always better than Quantity - you want an audience that is listening to you! Isn't it better to have 60 people who want to listen instead of 600 who are not? This applies to the number of social media sites that you sign up to use… there are thousands, be selective – don’t apply the scatter gun approach!

11. 10. And finally, as with all marketing activities, review it! You need to know if your efforts are converting to more traffic to your website, generating more exposure or incoming enquiries. If it's not working - you need to identify why ad change it!

12. Thank you for listening! Questions? Don’t forget to follow me: www.facebook.com/SocialMediaMarketingSouthWales www.twitter.com/nat_reynolds www.linkedin.com/in/nataliereynolds