Kalispell Chamber of Commerce members on Tuesday heard marketing tips to prepare for locals and tourists to hit the holiday shopping season.

Keynote speaker Connie Cermak, founder of Social Nectar, presented advice for small businesses to reach consumers with current marketing standards, which often mean using social media tools to engage with customers.

“There’s always some trepidation in getting started,” Cermak said. “But all businesses, whether they’re small, big or independent, are quick to see how powerful it is.”

Cermak’s tips included ideas such as knowing your market and audience, sharing attention-grabbing images and simply being creative.

Other concepts focused on being interactive across social media platforms. Creating a customer contest generates activity for your business, Cermak said, while creating a hashtag or asking people to share a post helps expose the business or product to a new group of consumers.

Cermak didn’t get a lot of interaction from the audience on Tuesday, which she said is unusual for her presentations. The difference wasn’t age, she said, but simply geography: Montana businesses are just farther behind on social media use.

Cermak said businesses that are hesitant to engage in social media marketing styles usually just need to invest more time and resources into their social media presence.

“A lot of Montana companies don’t realize you have to budget someone for social media,” Cermak said. “All social media marketing sites are just pieces to the marketing puzzle.”

Also at Tuesday’s luncheon, Courtenay Sprunger of Big Sky Public Relations talked about the upcoming Small Business Saturday on Nov. 28.

American Express started the holiday shopping event in 2010 to bring attention to small businesses during the heavy shopping periods around fall and winter holidays. Kalispell jumped in to participate in 2013 with 26 local businesses. Several small businesses, artists and studios especially, have seen the shopping holiday become their biggest day of the year.

So far, 68 small businesses have signed up this year while the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce is working with chambers in Whitefish, Bigfork, Evergreen and Lakeside-Somers.

“It’s neat to see the participation of so many other local chambers this year. It’s really going to be a valleywide effort,” Kalispell Chamber of Commerce President Joe Unterreiner said. “It’s an easy way for people to engage with our local businesses, especially with a lot of visitors on the holidays.”

Registration for Small Business Saturday is free. Businesses can register by calling Sprunger at 270-2949 or going online to www.KalispellChamber.com’s events page.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at [email protected].