Business Associations Hold Event on Social Media

The Scotch Plains Professional Business Association and the Fanwood Professional Business Association held a meeting on Thursday evening to teach small businesses how to use social media effectively.

Propietor of Bigg Playdate , Lisa Schiller, held the meeting at her cafe and event space providing many refreshments and frozen treats.

The professionals that attended ranged from Scotch Plains and Fanwood business owners, to those in Clark and Westfield as well.

Nikki Leske, who has over 15 years of marketing experience spoke to the group on how to use Facebook to benefit your business. Leske also just started up a Facebook page called Stories and Savings, which aims to provide deals and savings offered by local businesses.

Leske noted three tips to improve your Facebook presence.

The first is to have an appealing cover photo, however according to Facebook Terms of Service, make sure the cover photo does not promote a call to action. For example, "like my page below." 

A second was posting at the right time, the average is 7a.m., 5p.m. and 10p.m.m but businesses need to learn when the right time is for their audiences.

Lastly, Leske suggested always using photos, with photos more people tend to like them and share them which in return gets you more exposure.

A local business owner in Westfield asked how to get people to see your page.
Leske suggested sponsored ads(provided by Facebook) and tagging other businesses and friends to gain more exposure.

The second speaker was Maria LaMorte-Wright of CMIT Solutions. LaMorte-Wright spoke to Business Associations on how to used LinkedIn for business.

She noted that as a member of your business you should set up a  LinkedIn page because it makes you look more credible as a business when searched.

Additionally she suggested using LinkedIn for prospecting, or getting in touch with potential clients or employees.

A final point LaMorte-Wright made was that businesses should use a combination of tools, however they should not use so many tools that they are not doing a good job.

The last speaker was John Mandel, web designer, who reiterated the points of the ladies but also encouraged businesses to check their analytic provided by Facebook.

Mandel also suggested not hiring a third party to run your Facebook page.

"No one knows your business better than you do," he said. 

Encouraging owners to run their own pages, because they know exactly what they want and what is going on.

The closing point Mandel made was to not flood people with content, but to give them something good.

Both before and after the speakers presented, local business owners mingled and networked, getting to know those they have not met and reconnecting with those they haven't seen in awhile.

Among some of the new businesses at the event were a travel and leisure business from Westfield, a CMZ cleaning service, new to Scotch Plains and the new Darby Road restaurant of Scotch Plains.

At the event, Tracy Constandi was announced as the new president of the Fanwood Business and Professional Association.