Facebook or Google Plus to promote your small business?

Everything changes so fast in the realm of social media. Everyone is saying that Facebook is history. Google Plus is the big thing. What does it matter to me? It matters a lot because I need social media to sell my illustration work. I can make great illustrations but if you don’t know about it I will never sell. And, true, it’s my business! A small business, but quite important to me! I need the small money like lots of other persons to pay my bills. But illustrating it’s what I really enjoy doing. How can I sell my illustrations better from the comfort of my desk? That’s the big question for 2014. Is it a dream? Now! It’s already a reality! But a reality that isn’t perfect. I need to make more sales as Zazzle changed the rules and after a couple of months it's now clear that profits aren't what they used to be.

I started this new blog to promote my new store but it has been difficult to find the time to update it. Blogging is one of my favorite promotion techniques. But it is the social media tools such as Google Plus and Facebook or Twitter that really seems to matter. Even if we read constantly that Facebook is losing users everyday there is still much interaction in it. It seems youngsters left the network. Now it's a 30's and over network.  The secret to the good use of any of these or other platforms is to build a good reputation and solid relationships. Easy to say but not that easy to do…They say that Facebook is for women and Google Plus is for men. I don’t know if that’s correct or not. But my products are mostly women targeted. So I think it would be wise to stick to Facebook as much as I can! Lately I think Facebook users are getting too lazy. They seem to care and respond only to visual posts. Forget links and text-only posts! Oh, and forget also about images that have little or none visual impact. I think people are growing saturated of it all. It’s too much of everything. So in order to make the most of it posts must have immediate appeal. Also I have this feeling that what I post is not seen. Let's not forget that Facebook is a business. They keep changing the rules to make it a better business for themselves not us, the users. That's the reality!

Let’s forget about Facebook for a moment. Every day I read Google Plus, Google plus! That’s why I started a profile there. I am exploring! Experts say Google indexes posts from Google Plus quickly than any other network and that it makes a big difference in search ranking also. In order to get this benefit you must build a strong network and this means what? Good reputation and solid relationships. It’s not that different from what happens in real life. And how you do it? You do it by sharing good content and good quality links to the network. It’s not necessarily a thing about followers as far as I understood. You don’t want to be followed by a crowd in real life, you want to be followed by a selected crowd, people that mean something to you. And, as in real life, you must keep in touch with the crowd or the crowd will forget all about you no matter how good you are. I will try to post something relevant every week. But this isn’t enough, I should be posting every day. 

This is all pretty and clear. Problem is that I, fortunately, have a life! What I find most difficult is to create an engaging experience for the readers. I totally understand why companies hire social media professionals. It’s no simple task. It requires planning and time. You must be creative; you must be able to provide genuine interesting content and feedback. You have to entertain your audience as well! Not too funny, not too serious! You have to use the right keywords everywhere. In the About section and in the title and beginning of the posts. It’s just the same you have been doing while blogging. It's overwhelming when you think about it! But if you have a small business you just have to do it or to get someone doing it for you. Let's meet on Google Plus!