5 social media rules you learned in kindergarten

I often hear people say their company is not ready to use social media. It doesn’t have a large following, it’s locally-based, or it’s too small. My response: “That’s why you need to start now.” After all, social media can be a cost-effective way to increase your business’s following, generate buzz about your products and services, and help your company grow.

I once heard of a pizza place in a college town that launched a Twitter handle and promoted it with signs alerting patrons to follow it for exclusive specials. What the restaurant did next was just short of genius.

Whenever the store wasn’t busy, it would tweet a short-lived special—”free soda with a slice for the next hour,” “buy one slice and get one free for the next hour,” or “any large pizza for $9 until 9 p.m.” The result? Students swarmed the store. Almost any small business could use this strategy, and they should.

A pizza restaurant in a college town may be able to get thousands of followers on Twitter, but that might not be realistic for some small businesses. If you aren’t sure where and how to start marketing via social media, remember these simple rules from kindergarten and put them to work in your social media marketing efforts: