Social Media to Promote Small Businesses

There's a new group in Hay of self-employed people who are looking at ways that they can use the internet and social media to promote their businesses. Last night they were meeting at Tomatitos to discuss blogging, so they invited me along.
I wasn't the only blogger there - Emma Balch (of Pottery Cottage Clyro) has been blogging for longer than I have, and from more exotic locations, like India and Argentina! And James, who owns Tashi Gallery on the Pavement, works with computers, and knows far more about the technical side of things than I do.
It was interesting to see what other people are doing, though. Among the dozen or so people in the back bar were b&b owners, the lady who runs the Old Electric Shop antiques, a lady from Herb Farmacy, and an illustrator. They were interested in the differences between blogspot, WordPress and tumblr, and whether to Tweet, and what use could be made of Facebook. They weighed up the benefits of having a website of their own versus a blog, and whether the two could be linked - and the benefits of linking to other people's blogs and websites. They talked about tagging posts so that more people came across them while searching on the web, and wanted, above all, to bring more people into Hay as visitors.