Growth Monthly Volume 1 | Page 9

Local bloggers play an important role in growing any local business. There is a plethora of useful and effective tools like Bloglines, Placeblogger and outside in that identify local bloggers in a community. These local bloggers may be enlisted to write positively on the local business with an impactful link back to their business blogs. Local bloggers have the skills and wide network of followers to bring on benefits to a local business through their favorable blog comments on the business offerings and expertise. Their followers would be more swayed to check out the recommendation at the link provided in the blog posts. This creates the desired extra local exposure to boost the web presence of the business. Traditional media publications in a community can be effective, although the cost may be higher. SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS There are many relevant and useful social media tools such as ‘MeetUp’ to promote the local happenings in the neighborhood. The local business can tap on the membership base of these social media platforms that are cost effective approaches in growing a local business on the Internet. The Twitter user group is growing in leaps and bounds to be an effective platform for promoting the local business offerings and expertise. This is a very popular, cost effective and sometimes frees advertisement that can create brand awareness. Such is the power of approaching the right social media platform today. With the best of social media platforms, a local business can grow quickly locally and internationally.