According to Traylor, the Internet is a fantastic venue for entrepreneurs to promote their goods and services because “it’s an online meeting place for buyers.” The WWW is a place where buyers go to get information about their everyday lives, jobs and challenges, he says.

Traylor says research demonstrates a majority of people go online to research products, goods and services before making a purchase. More specifically, “a B2B buyer will migrate to a social media marketing platform designed to help them resolve their challenge,” he says.

How to leverage social media marketing platforms for your business
In order to maximize an investment in social media marketing platforms, it’s imperative to recognize “social media won’t work unless the content being created is helpful [to the reader/prospective buyer]. Social media is all about building relationships and no one will want to build a relationship with you unless you provided them with some value. That value is content that helps them understand how to resolve their problems,” says Traylor.

In 2014, LinkedIn announced it had attracted 300 million users worldwide since its inception in 2003. Therefore, it’s imperative for small business owners to tap into the incredible potential for business relationships engendered by that web site, says Traylor.

Traylor says his company’s research indicates when a potential buyer locates a business web site through LinkedIn, the interaction leads to a sale four times more often than other social media platforms.

Pinning with Pinterest
What started in 2010 as an outlet for people and businesses to share visuals of various projects, merchandise and other things they like on an online bulletin board has evolved into a venue for companies to promote their inventories in a creative way.

While Pinterest is a great venue for sharing photos and graphics of household projects or other things that benefit from visuals, it also allowed visitors to be directed to the web sites of products people pinned on their individual bulletin boards. That way, for example, if a Pinterest visitor wanted to buy a kitchen sink they saw on the site, they could simply click on the site’s URL posted alongside the photo. Once at the third-party site, they could buy the product electronically. However, Pinterest gained nothing from serving as the facilitator of that transaction.

Armed with that knowledge, the Head Pins at Pinterest decided things must change on its site. According to Cnet, the fledgling web site is in the process of removing the links to third-party web sites that directed people off Pinterest to check the product out. Why? The most likely answer is to boost the web site’s revenue. One way Pinterest plans to capitalize on the over 70 million visitors to its site is its new “buy” button. Such a button will allow visitors to purchase products pinned on people’s bulletin boards without leaving the site to complete the sale.

Pinterest is an excellent social media marketing platform for small businesses that rely on visuals to sell their products, says Traylor. “If the way something looks and the emotions it creates help you build relationships with buyers, Pinterest is great,” says Traylor.

---

Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and writer. She may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or @girlwithapen.