Social media puts your message into the hands of the consumers; they can post bad reviews, trash your product, and advise their friends to never come to your establishment.

Consumers can list what’s great that you offer and what could use some redesign. They can also provide rave reviews that result in your sales going up exponentially.

Quite simply, that is a lot of power to put in the hands of a consumer – use it wisely.

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to use social media as a platform for sales pitches…

You gather information on the effectiveness of the method by seeing what ad or set of wording draws in the most leads.

You can see what promotions drive the most traffic to your site and/or the most sales to your business.

In addition to this, you also have data such as unique site visitors, whether those visits were made by clicking on a link or typing in your URL, etc., as well as the information you gain from social media.

What to track?

Knowing what data is appropriate to track is more about what you are trying to discover than what you are actually tracking…

As a small business, you have a unique advantage to your larger competitors in that your cost for adoption of new technology is minimal, and the difference the technology can make is invaluable.

Aside from being able to connect and communicate with a local consumer more easily and more efficiently than before, technology can also enable you to expand your business’s horizons

– what started as a local “Main Street” type business can expand into a regional, or even international, player.

It is easier than you may think. Most obviously, technology enables you to conduct business via the Internet…