Small Business Social Media Strategies- Part 2
Posted by John Verity on Tue, Oct 18, 2011
Assuming you read our first installment in this series and were more or less convinced, you’re here to find out more about how a social media marketing strategy can help your small business.
Good! Welcome aboard. It’s hardly news that social media - Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. - have injected a great deal of excitement into the world of marketing. And it’s hardly surprising, either. This truly represents something brand new in the way of connecting with customers.
It’s new and increasingly, it’s a must, too. Look around and you’ll find many businesses you know, not least your competitors, using these new communications channels. One reason why: There’s very little cost involved. Another: If they do it, we have to do it, too. Nobody wants to be left out or miss the game, right? There really shouldn’t be any question about your participating in social media, but just in case you still have doubts, consider:
A social media marketing strategy represents a major component of what’s often called inbound marketing, which is a sort of inversion of the traditional marketing model. Inbound marketing aims to engage with an audience that already is a looking for you and your business and your products, even if that audience may not know yet that it’s you it’s looking for. Its essence is something quite simple but equally powerful: giving something away - useful information, advice, insight or perhaps just something intriguing or entertaining, such as a snappy video - in return for which you receive more visits to your website and more interest in your products and brand.
When used effectively, a social media marketing strategy makes your business visible and known exactly where it is most likely to be found by those who are expressly interested in and already seeking what you are selling, if only because their friends or colleagues are seeking it, too. And where does one get to encounter these motivated souls? In all sorts of online discussions, which may be expressly about your category of product or service or just the general, even idle chattering that goes on in a highly social venue like Facebook.
The social angle? This type of marketing takes advantage of the fact that 1) people talk and 2) that it’s a no-brainer for those who’ve found - or even better, who personally know - your business to “share you” with their friends and family. They might share a link to your website, or a block of text copied from your blog or best of all, a personal recommendation: “I just go the best haircut at Snips and Flips.”
In short, having a good social media marketing strategy is today’s amped-up version of word-of-mouth, just operating more rapidly and effectively than it ever did in the pre-digital world.
Clearly, this kind of sharing could be done via email, on a one-to-one basis. But that takes some thought and effort, both of which seem to be scarce these days. In fact, like it or not, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn are fast replacing email as the conversational “glue” that connects circles of close friends and less-close acquaintances.
Indeed, from all we can tell, it’s quite clear that Facebook, specifically, is out to get itself adopted as the main way that masses of people use and experience the Web, whether to communicate with each other, find shopping recommendations, share product tips and advice, or learn about and connect with merchants. Eventually, one imagines, Facebook might even turn into the main “place” where people do their online shopping.
The important point is that social networks pass along recommendations and comments 
automatically. For example, if Jane finds Ace Flowers down the street from her especially pleasing in some way, all it takes for her to “like” that shop is a click of Ace’s thumbs-up icon on Facebook and voila! - instantly, all 157 of Jane’s friends are notified of her positive feelings. And with just another click or two, any of those friends can immediately connect with Ace’s Facebook page, as well, and express their own thumbs-up.
Obviously, the more Ace Flowers can do to promote this kind of “liking,” the more chances it gets to win new online friends and, even better, in-store customers. What does Ace have to do to encourage this kind of pass-along?
The short answer: Actively update its Facebook page, keep its blog fed, treat its Twitter followers to lots of compelling updates.
The long answer: We’ll expand on all this in our next posting about small business and social media marketing strategy. Watch this space!