I’m addicted to infographics… and Pinterest is a great place to collect them.  Here’s yet another infographic I could not pass up on.  Though the sub-heading says “the single largest opportunity for national brands,” I look at this from a small regionalized business perspective.  Local search can play a huge role in the success of the small business.  In fact, I just wrote about the powerful combination of social, local and mobile and how that will impact the future of marketing.  But I also recently read a great prediction for this year.  It goes something like this:

“Not joining in the social conversation today will be the equivalent of not answering the phone or email in the year 2014.” Forgive me, I had a browser crash and for the life of me cannot find the source of that quote, and I am not saying it verbatim. It is to the best of my recollection, but I think you get the point, right?  It’s a pretty bold statement… I agree with it on most levels, but would say that joining the social conversation has to be done well – especially for the small guy who has limited resources…

I would add that in some cases, too many small or regionalized businesses are hyper-focused now on the thought “I need to be social,” and are losing sight of the value of local search.  I say the two go hand-in-hand.  For small business, being socially proactive is very important, but being search optimized at the same time will enable you to be highly competitive.  With social content now being better integrated into search results, having that extra push with organic search strength will increase your surface area.

I would encourage the small business owner to work with their internet marketing team to make sure that the social and search goals are closely aligned.  As you better optimize your website for search, the same rules should be applied to your social content sharing so your customers and prospects get the same message across the board!

Maybe this all makes sense, but you are not sure where to start…  Start with an SEO Assessment that looks at your website AND your social strategy to get the two together!