Local shop owners should be doing their best to make the most of online opportunities to expand their business.

We’ve come up with 3 simple and easy steps to get you started.

1. Share your business information in order to be found.

Whichever social network you decide to put your business on, it’s vital that you provide as many details on your business as you can – location, opening hours, what you sell, a brief history of your shop and lots of photos. Google + in particular is a good social network to use because it will index your page ( and all your business info) on Google. The more info you share and the more key words you use, the more likely you’ll be found in Google searches.

2. Get fans and followers.

Once your pages complete with all the necessary information, you need to start attracting fans (potential new customers) and also encourage existing customers to join your pages.  The simples way to do this is to run a competition; the key is to give away a fab prize that people will make the effort to join your pages for.

You must promote your competition inside your shop, with offline marketing materials like leaflets, stickers, posters and even a sandwich board outside your shop so that passers by can see the competition your running to. This will attract your existing customers to pages. To engage with new potential customers, Facebook Ads are a simple way to draw people to your Facebook page. Once your Facebook page begins to grow, you can start to alert your fans to other social media spaces your business is on.

3. Share the latest news.

Once old and new customers start to join your pages, start to share your latest offers and promos, exciting new stock, interesting business developments and even advice and tips. For example, of you own a cake shop, share cake recipes, cooking equipment, images of the cakes you’ve got on offer, popular cakes etc. Remember, people want to read content that is either interesting or useful for themselves so don’t go to hard on the self-promotion, share external content that you think your target audience might like too.

Social media development takes time so be patient and you’ll gradually see the benefits.

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