Mediaboss Marketing

For large companies that can afford to hire Web technicians, social marketing can be a breeze. But for small businesses, just learning the lingo can be daunting, said entrepreneur Geoff Cramer.

We were getting beaten over the head with social media, Cramer recalls of his years managing a Brookline real estate company. That was when a light bulb went on.

In late 2009, he teamed up with David Black, who owns a mortgage company, and boot-strapped SocialMadeSimple, a Newton-based Web company that offers small businesses willing to pay a fee analytics-based guidance to simplify social marketing.

That year, only 24 percent of small businesses had a profile on a social network, Cramer said. Today, the percentage has more than doubled, he said, but fewer than 10 percent of them post daily.

Instead, most treat their Facebook and other social network accounts as Web pages, listing their address and phone number and little else, Cramer said.

But the reality is, if youre not regularly sharing information, he said, you will be invisible.

For a fee ranging from $19 a month to $500 a month, SocialMadeSimple helps its 6,000 users optimize their presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs, with plans to add Pinterest and Google Plus.

The lowest fee gets businesses access to an online tool that allows them to manage all of those from one place, with guidance and industry-specific Web articles they can share, Cramer said. The highest fee gets them someone who manages their online reputation and both posts daily on all of their accounts and responds to others posts.

Its word-of-mouth marketing online, he said. Well make sure theyre staying on the cutting edge.

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Company's social-ly challenged? They'll make it Simple