So you’ve started a small business and now are in professional juggler mode. There are so many things to think of and address – accounting, payroll and HR issues, customer service and delivery – that you wonder how you’re going to be able to find customers and grow your business. Branding and growing is critical for any business but it is especially crucial for young and small businesses.

As one of my good friends in the marketing business reminds me, the days of placing Yellow Pages ads are long gone (as proven by the fact that some of you may not even know what I mean by the Yellow Pages). Our ability to more easily reach greater numbers of people increases constantly – but the question of how to best engage them continues to be a challenge.

And regardless of technology, there are still several branding and marketing ‘basics’ that apply:

• You have to reach people where they live – in other words, your message has to be pertinent to their interests, passions and needs.
• You have to reach out and touch people multiple times. Repetition builds familiarity and retention. As another friend always said “Keep repeating it until it’s their idea!”
• Touch them in such a way that they will want to remember you (hopefully in a positive way). You want your prospective customer crowd to build a desire to engage.
• And lastly, all of these interactions need to result in a compelling call to action. Whether it is coming into your restaurant for the first time, buying a subscription service or writing a fantastic review on Yelp or FB, your ability to invoke those actions is key.

Social media management provides us with a fresh way to interact with both current and future prospective customers. Not only is it a marketing channel with increasing usage, it is one of the most cost effective channels available. At the most basic level Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all free. And creating and maintaining a web page has become more accessible and affordable.

Many small businesses stop right there. Sure, you can put up a Facebook page and tweet out how you offer a 10% discount for #TBT orders. You can post daily, show cute pictures of your dogs hanging out in the office and cross-reference each of your digital footprints. But how do you know that your message is getting heard and having an impact. More importantly, how do you know that your message is being associated with your brand?

Whether your business is consumer oriented or BTB-based; product or service; local, regional, national or global, targeting prospective customers, reaching them with the right message and being able to effectively measure those customer’s interest is a huge advantage.

While a business can pay for data and some insights from social media companies, taking the time and resources to analyze that information can be very costly and overwhelming. Utilizing Wholecrowd to ‘boil the ocean’ and provide not only usable insights but also recommended content and strategies can save significant dollars over the course of building your business, increase your revenues, enhance your company’s sustainability and present a very positive ROI in regards to both hard and soft objectives.

Let Wholecrowd help your business today…it’s what we do!