Should small businesses invest time in using social media?

While listening to an interview of BJ Mendelson by Mitch Joel about his new book Social Media is Bullshit this weekend, I started thinking about how people and businesses perceive what social media can do for them.

• Do they believe it is a magic solution to gaining new customers?  
• Do marketers over promise the success of using social media?
• Do business users understand how key social is in social media?

Here are reasons I think you should use social media for your business and reasons you shouldn’t.

Good reasons to use social media for your business

• You’re interested in building relationships with your customers (actual and potential);
• You want to be a part of the conversation;
• You want to listen to your customers;
• You want to be available to your customers in the places they hang out and provide them information in the way they like to receive it.

Bad reasons to use social media for your business

• You think it is the magic answer to your ultimate success;
• You think everything you say will spread far and wide as soon as you start writing it;
• You think it will make you rich and famous;
• You think it can stand alone.

I have a background in Public Relations and Communications.  When I meet with clients to discuss social media, I don’t just think about social media.  I think about media relations, I think about community relations, I think about networking and I think about web content.  Why? Because social media is only one piece of your communications puzzle.

The only reason that we pull it out and separate it here is because social media (right now) requires more than just an action plan, it requires education.  People are scared and overwhelmed by social media and we want to walk them through it all.  The ultimate goal however is for social to simply be a part of overall communications for any business.

So, does it work?

Yes, and here’s proof:

One of my favourite local businesses here in Ottawa is an online company called Blend Creations. They have dropped all traditional print advertising and only use social media to market their products. 

Little Lotus Yoga credits social media not only for increased business but also for the amazing relationships and partnerships she’s been able to form.

Sara McConnell Photography gets almost 75% of her business from social media - primarily from current clients sharing the photos she takes of them with their friends via Facebook or sharing her blog.

If you’re a small business, have you seen success using social media?

A job well done

You don’t have to look very far to find all the latest PR disasters in social media circles. Sometimes it’s indivdiuals that land in the hot seat, but most often it’s a brand or business. There are so many massive and not-so-massive gaffes on social media every day. It’s easy to pick them apart and create a list of how-to-avoid this or how-to-respond-appropriately to that posts. 

I want to switch it around.

I personally have many, many more positive stories to tell about social media than negative, even when the end result wasn’t quite what I expected. 

So, here’s the challenge I present to you:

Tell me the things businesses do that you LIKE (or love or have admiration and respect for). I want to hear positive stories.

Why is it so important to shine a spotlight on the positive work that businesses are doing? Because it’s much easier to focus on how to optimize social media using tactics that are documented to work. It’s quite another thing to respond to or anticipate a fallout.

So, tell me what you love to see businesses do in social media.

Strategic Social: It starts with a plan!

Using social media to promote your business isn’t as simple as setting up a blog, a Facebook Page or a twitter account. Creating the right kind of content that is designed to achieve your specific business goals takes some forethought.

A social media plan gives you the opportunity to think through what you want to say and the direction to create content in bulk, eliminating the daily scramble for new content.

Here is a basic outline of what to put in a social media plan:

Who are you?

Write down exactly what it is that you do and why. Have you ever written it down concisely? If so, great, just use that! If not, take the time to write it down.

Who is your audience?

As tempting as it is to say “anyone who will pay me” here, don’t. Who are your primary target audiences? There can be more than one. Describe them as thoroughly as you can (age, gender, type of job, level of income, etc)

What are your key messages?

What do you want people to know about your business? You can have 3-4 and they can range from “we sell a great lightbulb” to “we are committed to the best customer service you can imagine” to “social media doesn’t need to be complicated.”

What are your goals?

Your goals for using social media can vary a lot. Pick 3-4 to focus on for the next 6 months. They can be about increasing sales, but they can also be things like “increase our web presence” “build  relationships with key online influencers”.

Tactics 

This is the real meat of the plan. How are you going to target your audiences with your key messages to achieve your goals?

Give yourself set tasks per week and then fill in an editorial calendar with them. 

Examples could be:

• Write two blog posts a week.
• Acquire two guest posts a month.
• Post daily on Facebook.
• Post three times a day on twitter.

You can then expand on those further:

• Every Monday share a photo of ____ on Facebook and twitter
• Every Tuesday promote a blog post
• Every Wednesday share a useful tip on ______ on Facebook and twitter.
• Every other Friday are guest posts on the blog.
• Every Saturday share a post from the archives of your site.

Aside from your editorial calendar what else could you plan to do to attract your audience?

• Write guest posts for other blogs.
• Offer to be interviewed in podcasts
• Build your newsletter list and commit to sending a monthly newsletter.
• Hold bi-monthly tweetups

The sky is the limit for tactics. Just remember to be realistic and to think about what your audience wants and would find of value.

Measurement 

Based on your tactics and goals, what measurements should you be tracking over the next six months? What is a reasonable result to indicate success?

• List a baseline and decide on a reasonable increase in twitter followers. (50 a month?)
• Increase engagement on your Facebook page by 25% 50% 100% per month (pick something reasonable based on your current engagement levels).
• Increase visits to your site by 20% over 6 months.
• Increase sales by 20% over 6 months.
• Have 6 guest posts published over 6 months.

Implement 

Now take all the above information and put it down on paper. You’re more likely to commit to it and do it if it’s a proper and formal document. 

Then do the work. It doesn’t always pay off immediately, but growing your online presence slowly and authentically is the best way to do it. Ask someone to be an accountability partner if you think that will help. 

Knowing how to get where you want to go is always easier with a map. Your plan is that roadmap to the destination you’re trying to get to (your goals) - make sure you have one.

Leave a comment below giving us an example of one of your key messages, goals, or tactics.

Personal branding: About.me

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest… the list goes on.  When you connect with new people how do you tell them where to find you online?

We recently talked about your personal brand and a great way I’ve found for you as an individual to have an online presence is by having an about page.  You could have this on a personal website or blog, but for those who don’t have a platform like that there are a number of services that have popped up that can help you. In this post I’ll be focusing on one of the services in particular with my images (About.me) but there are several other good services that are worth checking out as well (flavors.me and DooId.me)

What is it

About.me lets you easily create a one page web site about yourself.  You can add photos, you can write a profile, and you can add links to all the social channels and web pages you want to share.  It’s a one stop shop on you and what you do.

Why should you have one?

Not everyone will need one, but a few reasons to have are:

To promote yourself as an individual. 

To tie together all the projects you have.

To tell a story.

Because they’re fun.

How do I set a page up

These sites are very intuitive and easy to set up (and free!). I’ve set mine up, but realize it isn’t quite up to the caliber of the examples I’ve found here.  Seems to me I just found an excuse for a new photoshoot :)

It’s really as easy as picking a few photos, some fonts, writing something about yourself and filling in the information about your social networks.

Tools that make it easy to create a professional looking presence online are always a win in my opinion!

We want to hear from you! Leave a comment below and let us know if you have an about page or if you think it would be a useful tool for your personal brand.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Content

Content creation can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. We can take the principles of sustainability in the physical world and apply them to the virtual world as well. This helps on those days when the ideas seem to have dried up. 

How can you apply these concepts to online content to support your content marketing efforts?

Reduce

Reduce the time you spend generating content (and thinking/stressing about it).

How do you do this? By thinking creatively about the content that already exists around you. Some other great words are reimagine, repurpose, refine.

Reuse

As you build a repository of content, you can bring old content forward with a refresh for your audience. The audience will shift over time, but evergreen content is always useful. 

Perhaps you’ve got old list posts that are partially out-of-date but partially relevant. Take relevant items and share them on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Recycle

…Ideas

• Industry publications and thought leaders - respond to blog posts and shifts in direction,
• Notes you made two years ago - expand on those thoughts, mature them into usable content,
• Employees - they can offer unique perspective that may valuable to your customers and clients,
• Competitors - they’re working to differentiate themselves; how can you do it better?

…Materials

• White papers that need to be updated - turn them into a series of blog posts,
• Brochure for the trade show - commission an interesting infographic to post online,
• List of best practices for your industry - schedule updates for Twitter and Facebook,
• Training manual - create a series of videos for clients to subscribe to for training,
• Report for a client - case study of success; share your successes and how they happened.

Just as photographers walk around mentally framing images all around them, content marketers need to look at the world around them with an eye for content. Capture the moments of inspiration when they happen and your content will flow more smoothly.

What other marketing materials (traditional or online content) in your organization can be repurposed for online use?