As I get more and more involved in the local side of the Internet marketing game I am seeing some interesting trends. Trends can be either good or bad although in the social media sphere you would think that it’s always good. In this post I would like to point out one thing that any SMB (small and medium business) needs to consider before climbing on social media’s bandwagon.

This is going to sound overly simple for some but it doesn’t make it less relevant. The simple question that every SMB has to ask themselves is:

What percentage of my CURRENT customers are using social media like Facebook and Twitter?

You would suspect that everyone asks this question but it is quite the opposite. Since SMB’s are so busy trying to handle so many different things during the course of a business day rarely is there time for research. That’s unfortunate because simple research can prevent some major mistakes.

So why concentrate on existing customers and not think about how social media can attract new ones? It’s simply because the art of getting new customers via social media should be phase 2 of any social media strategy for an SMB. I realize that this point of view will be deemed as heresy by many social media industry types and that’s cool. Social media is not as much about being right or wrong on every occasion as it being flexible to see what is really happening despite the industry’s call to arms for everyone to everything at every moment.

If you are an SMB or you are servicing the SMB market please do the right thing. Find out how many existing customers are using social media outlets and then concentrate on customer retention through social media before you dive into customer acquisition through social media. They are two completely different animals in most cases and we all know that it much less expensive (and much easier) to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Same axiom applies in social media.

So save some time and ask the simple questions first. You will be happy you did.

I have had the pleasure of watching a small start-up business and those who are connected to it take the initiative to learn about Internet marketing including web site creation, search marketing, social media and much more. It has been a learning experience for the business owners themselves and even one spouse who has been bitten by the Internet marketing bug.

The business is a high end consignment shop in Raleigh, NC called “Our Friend’s Closet”. The owners are two women who decided that it would be good idea to open a shop that provided consignment opportunities for upscale clothing and accessories for women. I was asked to help out by a friend (one partner’s husband who has since channeled his inner Internet marketer). Please note that there has been no payment for my service or input. That’s not the norm, quite honestly, but in this case I was returning a favor to a friend.

When I first got involved the shop was promoting itself through paper fliers, word of mouth, some Craig’s List efforts and an early stage Facebook fan page. Considering this business is only 5 months old this was not a bad start.

This was the classic case of, what you don’t know can hurt you, as well. No one was aware of the Google Local Business Center. For a business that had no website this was some valuable information. Now they are aware but how much optimization of this listing for their consignment shop has gone on I can’t tell you. I do know that they have claimed their listing so they are safer than they were before.

And the website? Well, a few hours with GoDaddy and my friend can now add “has created a website” to his skill set (designers please stop snickering, it’s perfect for now). He has also gone through the process of waiting to be indexed and the site now ranks #88 for the term Raleigh consignment shop (if you check that and it’s not there that’s Google’s fickle nature).

So will a link or two from my blog help out the effort? We’ll see. I want them to succeed because they do good work so I’ll give it a try.

There is so much more for them to do but they are out of the gate. One thing I know they have discovered is that they didn’t know a lot about Internet marketing but now they know a lot more. They know it takes time and real work to succeed in the online marketing space. More importantly though, they know that they can do this on their own. They also know there is more to do and this isn’t a “set it and forget it” exercise. That’ s very cool.

Finally for the ladies, here’s the pitch. If you live in the Raleigh area make sure you stop by the nicest consignment shop you have ever seen. I bet you’ll be as surprised as I was.

I have been in the Internet marketing industry now for the past 5 years. I guess many would consider me a newbie in some ways. I love reading all of these people who say they have been optimizing websites since 1994. In other words, back in the day they could keyword stuff with the best of them. While that’s interesting it literally means nothing today. In fact, I am trying to decide what is exactly important in today’s world of Internet marketing. Anyone can study what used to work and see how it was abused and eventually devalued by Google and other engines. What means something now is what works now and what might work in the future.

I have been putting some thought into this and I keep bumping up against the local business listing every time. I am finally starting to understand just how valuable and underutilized the local listing is especially in the B2B market.

For years this local listing has been something that is relegated to the restaurants, plumbers, electricians and other genuine local businesses. I say genuine in that there has been little consideration given by larger companies to this search factor. I think those days are over because if you are a large business with local offices around a region, country or whatever and you have not completely optimized your local listings in the major engines you may be leaving money on the table.

So should IBM, Cisco or any other large company really care about these listings? ABSOLUTELY! Here’s why.

• Social means local – While everyone is excited about how social media allows for contact between the little ol’ customer and the big ol’ company it is still not what seals a deal. After the contact is made and everyone gets their happy social media face on those ‘feel good’ moments could easily be fumbled once the lead is put into the machine of the big company. Now, if that big company has a local presence that could be the contact point for that lead (especially when they do a search for the company locally) the social aspect gets even stronger. Why? Because there are people that could possibly shake hands with the prospect. Today that is more powerful than ever.

• Local implies trust – This is a classic ‘perception is reality’ situation but it is powerful. People like to deal with someone on a local basis even if it is a representative of a Fortune 500 company. It’s how humans work and that will not change much in the foreseeable future.

• Local is a surprise – Have you ever done a search and in the Google Maps 10 pak you see a big company listed? There is a measure of surprise there and it is usually followed by “I didn’t know that” or “Wow, that’s neat.” If you are familiar with that big company and you do that search and they are not there it doesn’t really matter, right? Wrong? The companies that ARE there now move up in the pecking order and the big guy? Well, he’s still big but he’s not local.

What other aspects of local do you feel all businesses can benefit from? Should big guys even care about their local listing?