Small Business Social Media Strategies- Part 1
Posted by John Verity on Tue, Oct 11, 2011
Part 1 of a 5-part series on how small business can use social media as a cost-effective way to capture leads and sales.
Social media for the small business owner? What a concept!
It wasn’t that long ago that Internet marketing was something only giant corporations did - organizations with big bucks to spend. How else could a business get to be seen out on the wild and wooly Web without spending and spending, and then spending some more?
Things have changed, though, and how. Today, effective online marketing is available to any small business willing to make the effort. Big budgets are not required, only initiative and sufficient know-how, which this and subsequent posts on this blog will attempt to describe.
No matter what kind of business you’re running - florist, restaurant, tire shop, pizzeria, CPA, manufacturing, beauty salon, grocery store, you name it - the Web is there for you to use as a great and most-effective way to attract, engage with, and do business with customers - current ones and new ones. And you can do that in a way that doesn’t insult anyone’s intelligence, pander to their worst instincts, or reduce anyone to mere a statistic.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, because as we’ll see, Internet marketing, and especial when it uses social media, actually works best when it harnesses people’s innate curiosity and desire to connect with others - to socialize, that is, and commune with friends, family, and followers.
From all we can see, masses of small businesses are taking the plunge right now. A day doesn’t go by that we don’t see another local store’s truck pass by sporting a website URL or, increasingly popular, an invitation to “Check us out on Facebook!” And increasingly, we find ourselves moved to jot down that URL and check it out when we get back home. (We’re not so plugged as to have a browser on our phone - not yet, anyway.)
For example, a new Thai restaurant just opened down the street from us and once evening, as dinnertime approached, we thought we’d check the place out. Sure enough, it had its own website displaying its menu. Google found us this site when we plugged in the name of our town, “Thai,“ and the name of the street. (Keep this factoid in mind as it will play a part in later installments in this series.)
But more impressive to us as observers of the Internet marketing scene was that these restauranteurs also made a point of inviting us to “like” them on Facebook, to review their place on Yelp, and to subscribe to their Twitter feed. Here, we thought, are some very Web-savvy entrepreneurs. All they seemed to be missing, social media-wise, was a blog - an item that, in fact, we’ve lately been reading with some enthusiasm on the website of another Thai eatery located across town.
No doubt you’ve been seeing the same kind of thing in your town or city: small businesses taking advantage of social media technologies as a way to reach out to customers, stimulate conversation, increase loyalty, catch Google’s eye, fuel conversation, encourage mentions and pass-alongs and, when all is said and done, spur repeat business. It’s easy enough to do and there’s really no reason you and your small business shouldn’t be doing it, too.
Here’s the thing: Social media is just that, social, and that means it works itself. In a way, social media is a mega-exercise in word of mouth. It’s not a matter of coming up with clever slogans such as “Coke adds life,“ “Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight,“ Crazy Eddie’s prices are In-Saaaane!,” etc. And it’s certainly not a matter of shouting at people. Rather, it’s about providing current and future customers with something valuable, something they’re actively looking for in the first place, something that’s sufficiently useful, informative, or just plain entertaining for them to pass it, and your business’s name, along to others.
A good way of thinking about social media is as a sort of Radio You. It’s a way of using the Web to broadcast your voice, your persona, your thoughts, your mind in a way that’s easy for others to take in and share. You needn’t be a polished speaker or entertainer to make this work. The aim is simply to provide a steady - but no, not necessarily continuous and certainly not 24/7 - stream of informational tidbits, insights, observations, quips, pieces of advice, and/or just plain old chatter, all of which will draw customers and prospective customers your way.
In our next post, we'll look at some specifics. So, as they say on Radio You, stay tuned.