How much time do you spend in social media sites? A few minutes a day? A few hours a day? What about your kids and their friends? What about your customers?

It’s possible that you’re the rare exception to the rule. Many peole “confess” to spending hours online, primarily in social media engagement via Twitter or Facebook. Internet usage has skyrocketed, according to a study published in May 2009 by the Center for Media Research.

Some stats from this study include:

• There are 87% more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883% more time devoted to those sites.
• In the last year, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73%

And Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at Nielsen Online says: “The Internet remains a place of continuing innovation, with users finding new ways to integrate online usage into their daily lives.“

In other words, savvy businesses are using video and social networking and other internet marketing techniques to reach out to their customers where they are spending their time: online… and, specifically, in video and social media sites.

Neilsen also concluded that: “Given the increased focus on digital marketing [...] the Internet’s share of commerce will continue to rise.” For offline businesses that are ignoring the online marketing opportunities, this is a scary thought. Internet commerce is already huge and stealing a large piece of local business revenue… and it’s expected to grow.

Is your business marketing where your customers are spending time?

If not contact us now to get started today.

Recently, my wife and I made plans to go to dinner with friends. We had eaten at all of the “regular” places and were feeling adventurous so we decided to try something new. We went online, typed in our city, the kind of food we want to eat, and the word “restaurant”. “Boston Chinese restaurant” or “Boston Italian restaurant” or something like that.

Very convenient! Google is “feeding” the local search frenzy by providing services like adding your place of business to a map that appears at the top of local searches.

Alllll the way back in 2005, The Kelsey Group (an advisory service specializing in internet marketing and other marketing channels) found that 70% of internet searches use the web to find local businesses. (Read their findings here).

That was 4 years ago and that number had increased by 16% between October 2003 and March 2005 (an increase of basically 1% per month).

I believe that this number is going to be much higher now for the following reasons:

1. There has been a growing emphasis on local search since then
2. Wifi has become more ubiquitous, allowing for search-on-the-go
3. Social networking sites have seen growth in the local side of networking (an example being Twitter, which is used to connected globally but also locally through hashtags like #nyc or #la or #miami or #boston, etc.)
4. Smartphones (especially the the iPhone) offers numerous apps geared to local businesses.

In some cases, searching well for specific keywords might not be easy for you but, chances are, you have plenty of space to actively target (and achieve) Google top ten ranking on your own name or business’ trade name.

It’s easy to do once you find the right keywords to target. And, in Lisa Barone’s blog on SmallBizTrends.com, she outlines seven easy steps to help you own your top ten spots on Google. Read Barone’s tips about search engine marketing.

I’ll briefly summarize the article and build on it here:

In her first action step, she recommends that you buy your own .com. I’d suggest that you might also consider buying your own .net and .org and creating different content there. (For example, many companies use their .com website as their business website and their .net site as a separate site talking about their company.) Or, use .com for your business and .net for your blog.

In her second and third action step, she recommends that you sign up for various professional directories and social sites, including LinkedIn, Naymz, Twitter, and more. I’d suggest that you might consider going to this Wikipedia list of social networking sites and hitting all of the ones that are important to you. She also recommends that you keep these profiles active, which can take a lot of time. Fortunately, we’re seeing an increasing number of places where you can consolidate this work, including PeoplePond.

Her third, fourth, fifth, and sixth recommendations are sound ideas and things I would have recommended as well. (Read them here.) Her seventh recommendation – to find local speaking opportunities because they often come with a bio – surprised me. I think it’s an interesting take and I like the local search engine marketing aspect of it, of course. I think there might be other local opportunities, as well, including local forums. So if you’re an Maryland business looking for specific Maryland search engine marketing, you can take advantage of this opportunity by bringing in local keywords.

Barone’s article is good, and a must read for any business that has wondered how to achieve a Google top ten ranking. Barone says: “own them all!”