In the past, creating local content was easy. You paid for a listing in the Yellow Pages, printed flyers, and possibly placed an ad in the local newspaper. People were aware of who you were and where you were.

Then came web marketing and everything changed. At first, the advice was to focus on general keywords. However, Google and other search engines' algorithms have evolved over time. They now prioritize local search above all else.

Why does that matter? In short, creating compelling local content is not optional. It is as essential as oxygen. You need to demonstrate to potential clients that you are an active participant in the neighborhood, which requires you to go beyond simply providing an address.

The Fundamentals of Local Marketing

I've already written a lot about local marketing, but I think it's important to include a short summary of how to optimize your website and content for local search. Keep these things in mind:

• Optimize your site for mobile search and make sure it looks great on mobile devices.
• Optimize your site for local voice searches and "near me" searches.
• Choose local keywords with a high search volume that are highly relevant to your business. The name of your city, state, or neighborhood, as well as keywords relevant to your business, are the best local search words.
• Use rich snippets to include important geographic information in your Google search results.
• Obtain links from important local sites to your site. Remember that when it comes to link building, quality trumps quantity. To build your local SEO "cred," focus on local business guides, the Chamber of Commerce, and related local businesses.
• Encourage your customers to leave reviews and link to your review pages on your website. Customer testimonials, which go into a bit more depth than reviews, are also very important.

Following these tips will help you get started, but you'll still need to create compelling local content to attract customers.

Local Content Creation Tips

Once your site has been optimized for local searches, you should concentrate on creating local content. This entails more than simply incorporating local keywords into general content. You'll need to demonstrate to site visitors that you're a part of a local community.

Suggestions to get you started:

Determine your audience's interests and then write about them. Of course, you don't want to stray too far from your business, but there's nothing wrong with getting excited about topics that are important to your audience. You could, for example, write about an upcoming community event or the year's first major storm.  If you already have a customer avatar, this should be even easier.

Write a blog about local events

Local events are important in every community, from small rural towns to large cities. As a business owner, you should be aware of these events and look for ways to create local content about them that are relevant to your company. It will be simple if you plan to sponsor a booth at your local fair.

However, local charity events and holiday celebrations allow you to talk about your community and why you love it.

Stay local with your local content

Create case studies that are relevant to local prospects.. One method is to create an "insider’s guide to…."  that demonstrates your knowledge of the area.  A landscaper in Southern California, for example, might discuss the risk of wildfires or provide advice on how to get rid of black widow spiders.

Discuss local news. Did your neighborhood Little League team advance to the playoffs? Was your town featured nationally somehow? Is there going to be a new business in town? Any of these things could be turned into blog posts, and they're especially effective if you can find a natural way to connect the story to your business.

Staying connected to your community online is a great way to get ideas for local content. You could like your local Chamber of Commerce on Facebook, subscribe to your local newspaper, and go to the library to see what new flyers have been posted on the bulletin board.

What is your content's intent?

When creating local content, one of the most important things to remember is that every blog post or social media update you write should have a clear intention that is related to your business.

What exactly do I mean? Simply put, you can't waste time blogging about something if you don't know why you're writing about it. Sometimes the intention is obvious. You own a hardware store, and blogging about winter snowfall predictions might help you sell some shovels and snowblowers, or at the very least some Ice Melt.

At times, however, the intention may be a little more difficult to pin down. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't skip this step. If you're inventive enough, you should be able to connect any piece of content you create to your company.

For example, suppose you want to blog about a local charity event but can't think of an organic way to connect it to your business. Instead of giving up, consider donating a portion of your sales to charity or organizing a fundraising event with other local business owners.

The key is to make your local content relevant to your company and its target audience. You can still share general content, but if you want your business to grow, you must share local content.

Looking for new, unique ways to share your local business? We want to help you curate your local content! Sign up to meet with Jay Vics on the Meet the Experts podcast to showcase your local business.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially when trying out new marketing strategies. However, when your small business is putting its reputation (and money) on the line to experiment with new digital marketing strategies, making certain mistakes can be (literally) costly.

With that in mind, let's look at 5 of the most common local marketing fails and how to avoid them.

1. A user experience that is focused on you rather than marketing to your audience

A website's visual impact is important, but it also needs to support an engaging and efficient customer journey.

Your audience visits your site to solve their problems and alleviate their pain points, not to learn about your products. Your marketing should show that products could be the solution to their problems. But, they’re not picking up what you're putting down.

So, if you have a lot of visitors to your site but they aren't converting the way you want them to, it's time to take a step back and evaluate your user experience.

Consider a Home Page refresh, new Landing Pages, or an update to your payment options or check-out process, as examples.

According to recent Bain research, companies that excel at Customer Experience grow revenues at a rate that is 4%-8% higher than the market average.

2. Reluctant to experiment with new marketing channels

Marketing is constantly evolving, and the only way to effectively promote your business on a consistent basis is to keep up with the changes and be open to trying new marketing activities.

However, many small business owners make the mistake of focusing solely on one, relatively simple marketing technique. For example, they may build a following on Instagram and believe they can avoid using other marketing methods.

So, what happens if your target audience unfollows you on IG? It may appear unlikely that such a thing could occur, but it is possible. Trends pass us by. Websites that were popular yesterday are no longer available. You must plan ahead of time and do everything possible to spread the word in multiple ways. That doesn't mean you should spend all of your time marketing, but it does mean you should diversify.

3. You haven't claimed your social media pages yet

You don't have to be active on every social media site out there. What you should do is spend a few minutes claiming your business name on all relevant sites and posting some basic information about your business. If a potential customer searches for you on Instagram, you want them to find accurate information, such as your address, phone number, email address, and business hours.

If you don't claim your business, your leads may end up on a page run by a stranger, someone who isn't looking out for your best interests. So a few minutes now can save you a lot of marketing trouble later. Check out one of our brand pages here for Meet the Experts!

4. You are not managing your reviews

Local businesses rely heavily on online reviews. People who frequent your business can easily leave reviews on sites like Yelp, Angi, and Google. According to research, more than 80% of all consumers rely on online reviews before making a purchase. However, many local business owners don't do everything they can to ensure that their reviews are benefiting their marketing.

The first step is to claim your business listing on all local review sites. Customers can leave reviews even if a business hasn't created a listing, so you might be surprised at how many reviews you have if you haven't checked. Check your existing profile to ensure that all relevant information, such as your contact information, hours, and prices, is correct.

The second step is to devise a system for responding to reviews. It's a good idea to keep an eye on your accounts. Positive reviews can be great for marketing, and you should respond with a simple thank you. But, negative reviews require a bit more finesse. Responses that remain positive are the most successful. If possible, try to take the conversation offline and do whatever you need to do to resolve the situation.

5. You are not being consistent with your brand

Everything you do online has an impact on your brand. If you have more than one person posting on your behalf, whether on your blog, website, or social media, you must have a well-defined strategy in place to ensure that everything associated with your company reflects your brand. That is, your colors and fonts should be consistent with your logo. However, it also implies that the tone of what you post must be consistent with the personality of your brand.

Creating a customer profile can assist you in identifying your core customers and tailoring your brand to them. Consider the tone of some major corporations, such as Red Bull and Rolls Royce. Red Bull employs brash, hip language that reflects their brand and audience, whereas Rolls Royce employs elevated language that addresses their core customers.

The good news is that these five errors are simple to correct. If you notice any of these flaws in your own marketing efforts, take the time to correct them and get back on track. Your company will be grateful in more ways than one!

Looking for new ways to make your marketing successful? Click here to join Jay Vics on the Meet the Experts podcast. We want to help you with fun, unique marketing that fits your business!

As a small business, social media is your secret weapon for marketing. It's essential to use social media to reach new customers and connect with existing ones. Whether you're just getting started or already running a highly successful campaign, there's always room for improvement. In this article, we'll explore the top social media mistakes small businesses make and how to fix them, including our own tips on improving your social media marketing strategy.

Not Posting Regularly Enough

One of the most common social media mistakes small businesses make is not posting regularly enough. This can be for a variety of reasons, from lack of time to simply forgetting. If you're not posting regularly, your audience will quickly lose interest and move on to other brands that are more active on social media.

The fix: Set aside some time each week to plan and schedule your social media posts. If you can, designate someone on your team to be responsible for social media and make sure they have the time and resources they need to succeed.

Some popular social media planners include Hootsuite, Later, and Buffer all with free to paid plans.

Posting Too Much

On the opposite end, some businesses post a little too much. This can be overwhelming for your followers and turn them off from your brand. It's important to strike a balance between posting too little and too much.

The fix: Take a step back and analyze how often you're posting on each social media platform. If you're posting multiple times a day on any platform, try scaling back to once a day or a couple of times a week. Experiment with different posting frequencies and see what works best for your audience. Remember that each industry is different, so what frequency is too much in one niche is perfectly fine in another.

Not Posting Relevant Content

Another common mistake is posting content that isn't relevant to your audience or industry. This can happen if you're trying to be too general in your social media marketing or if you're not sure who your target audience is. As a result, your posts will fall flat and fail to engage your audience.

The fix: Take some time to research your target audience and what kinds of content they're interested in. Once you know who you're talking to, you can start creating content that resonates with them.

If you're struggling to come up with ideas, try looking at what other businesses in your industry are doing on social media. Use social listening tools to track relevant keywords and see what kind of content is being shared the most. Then, adapt and improve upon it for your own audience.

Not Engaging with Your Followers

Another mistake small businesses make on social media is failing to engage with their followers. This means more than just responding to comments and @ mentions (although that's important, too). It also means liking, sharing, and commenting on other people's content.

The fix: Spend some time each day engaging with your followers and other people in your industry. Like and comment on their posts, share their content, and start conversations. Not only will this help you build relationships, but it will also make your brand more visible to new potential customers.

There are many tools that can help you organize and consolidate all your social media profile into one dashboard. These listening tools can single handedly change the game if you’re trying to increase your engagement across all social media platforms.

Sprout Social, Salesforce’s Service Cloud, and Reputation are the best at this. On a budget? Try Hootsuite.

Not Measuring Your Results

Measuring your results is essential. This is important for any marketing campaign, but it's especially important on social media. With so much noise, it can be easy to get lost and not know if your efforts are actually paying off.

The fix: Use social media analytics tools to track your progress and measure your results. These tools will help you see how many people are engaging with your content, what kind of impact you're making, and where you can improve.

Without measuring your results, it's impossible to know if your social media marketing is actually working.

Many platforms will have these tools built in, but addition services like Sprout Social, Buffer Analyze, Hootsuite, and Social Report, can give you deeper insights about your customer base and what resonates with them.

Not Having a Social Media Strategy

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make on social media is not having a strategy. They might post randomly or without any purpose, which can lead to wasted time and effort.

The fix: Having a social media plan in place will guarantee that your efforts are more successful and are working to assist your company's broader objectives. When you're coming up with a strategy, it's critical to keep in mind these goals so that you can create material that supports them.

Additionally, figure out what your social media goals are, what you want to get out of it, and make sure to track them with analytic software (mentioned above) to ensure that your work is paying off. When developing a plan, remember who your target audience is and create content that speaks to them that aligns with your goals.

It is essential to take some time to develop a strategy since it's easy to get lost in the sea of social media and fail to accomplish anything without it.

Not Using Social Media To Its Full Potential

Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but many small businesses don't use it to its full potential. They might not take advantage of all the features available, or they might not use them to reach their target audience.

The fix: Make sure you're using all the features available on each social media platform. For example, on Facebook, you can use groups, events, and Messenger to reach more people. On Twitter, you can use hashtags and lists to organize your followers. And on Instagram, you can use Stories, Live Video, and IGTV to engage with your audience.

Take some time to learn about all the features of each social media platform and how you can use them to reach your target audience. Then, start using them to your advantage.

Not Promoting Your Social Media Content

Not promoting your content can be a big mistake, especially if you're a small business with limited resources. If you're not promoting your content, it's unlikely that anyone will see it.

The fix: Promote your content on social media and other channels. Use paid advertising, share it with influencers, and post it in relevant groups and forums.

Don't make the mistake of not promoting your content. Make sure you're doing everything you can to get it in front of as many people as possible.

Not Taking Advantage of Social Media Trends

Trends are everywhere and they're easy to pick up if you use social media in both a private and work setting. Taking advantage of a trend can make your post go viral, especially if it's curated to your audience. Ignoring trends will make you miss countless free promotion opportunities.

The fix: Use social media trends to your advantage. If you see a trend that's relevant to your business, jump on it and use it to promote your content. Not only will this help you reach more people, but it will also make your brand more visible and relevant.

If you're not sure where to start, check out some influencers in your industry and see what they're doing to get eyes on their posts. Use can also use free websites like Google Trends, TweetDeck, and BrandMentions to track trends.

Check out how Jay Vics incorporates trends and unique content on TikTok!

Ignoring Negative Feedback

It's inevitable that you'll receive some negative feedback at some point. And while it's not pleasant, it's important to take it in stride and use it as an opportunity to improve your business.

The fix: Don't ignore negative feedback. Respond to it in a constructive way and use it to make your business better. Negative feedback can be painful, but it's important to listen to it and use it to improve your business.

Bonus Tip: Remaining in Your Comfort Zone Can Kill Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

If you're not comfortable with change, you'll never be able to take advantage of new opportunities or reach your full potential.

The fix: Be open to change and willing to try new things. Social media is constantly changing, so you need to be too.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the most common mistakes small businesses make on social media. By avoiding these mistakes, you'll be well on your way to social media success.

Looking for other ways you can uniquely and effectively promote your business? We want to help. Reach out today to book your time on the Meet the Experts podcast. No one knows your business better than you, so get your name out there!