Great article from Mashable pointing out that SMEs should be taking advantage of social media more and that in many ways they have the edge over large companies.
Without a doubt social media is helping small businesses that take advantage of it as long as they dont over use it.
Within my business I leveraged my personal brand on twitter and have brough in a fair amount of profit from using twitter and facebook without doing any real selling at all.
Great points. I run workshops showing small business how to use Blogger for their websites. It gives them a free easy to update platform. It's even better now that it has the Pages feature. My site (see below) is also powered by Blogger. Couldn't agree more about the personal touch. Consumers and employees make up their own minds these days and are not dictated too by 'faceless companies'.
When I changed direction some years ago and formed the Group I am now involved in, I was given a really good piece of advise that I have stuck to every since ... I have a variety of businesses that are all money connected, but to concentrate on one at a time, merely dillutes the message, so was told, that I had to market ME - make me the forefront so that people approach me and associate me with money - so to this end, I have used social networking in its many forms for years now to promote me, Gill, or Gillie - to create association with money and to lead on from that.
So yes, for a small business, its better to give it a personality - people get people, so therefore sell people first, and the business will follow!
Let's not forget that, for many small businesses, budget is an issue. Online marketing can allow small businesses to engage with their end users without having to spend a lot of money - it just takes time.
For those who have the time to spend, there are a lot of resources available in the net to give hints and tips for making the most of social media. For those who don't, schemes such as www dot scrapyourwebsite dot com are great. However it's done, social media marketing should be engaging and a chance to converse with the end user.
The personal touch mentioned by @Gillie is a good point. You can add your personality to Facebook and Twitter by including your photo. In Twitter you can put on background even if your logo is on your profile pic. On your Facebook page you can customise the profile pic to include logo and your pic. On Twitter bio it's good to state the name of the person people are tweeting with even if the account is set up with a business name.
Good to add personal content and touches to tweets and status updates too even if it is a business account.
Social media are really a place to generate traffic and sale. In any website it is essential it take it to the mass and these social networking sites are the answers.
Social media has definately taken marketing to a new level where engagement is key. It means we have to share quality content and not just spam to ensure we reach our target audience in the right way.
Definately agree with the Mashable article - small businesses should be taking advantage.
From experience I can honestly say at this stage conversion via social media is very poor. There are uses and it cannot be ignored but people are wrong if they think it will be the answer to a successful business.
I think social media has a lot to offer in terms of engagement with the target audience. It causes us to have to provide quality content and interaction rather than just pushy sales messages.
However, it is important to consider the target audience and whether or not this is the best way of engaging them.
Even if you don't use social media, thinking around the idea of engagement with the audience has got to be good.
The question is how do we get our target audience to link to our profiles (on mass) then make sure they take our 140 char messages seriously?
We cannot presume by just posting the messages will be seen as the second they hit the airwaves they are knocked down by the sheer volume of traffic.
In terms of B2B ventures we can try linking to potential customers via Twellow, however it's a little spammy, takes a lot of time and the benefits are not guaranteed.
I am a fan of social media and later this year I am going to try and use some innovative experiments, I just don't see it in the same light as most.
Twitter doesn't necessarily have to take up all your time, but I do see your point. I think you need to be able to invest at least some time into it.
I recommend Hootsuite - it's a client which allows you to manage your Twitter account(s) easily. I have it open on my browser all day and just check in every now and again.
There are so many other social media forms available. It's really important that, whatever you choose, it is the place where your target audience are active and where you can engage with them.
I'm working with a client prior to launch of their online business and following launch we'll be able to get good metrics on conversion so I'll pass them on. This will be the best client example as others I work with are harder to prove...especially for walk-in business. Some benefits of social media just can't be measured easily. Eg creating engagement and conversations, preparing the ground for a business. Some people might see the content but not actually 'follow' or 'like'. They might not buy for 6 months and then by walking into a shop or pub so a direct correlation between social media activity and sales is not always possible. But as I say happy to pass on what I have for the online biz.
I think it very much depends on what the business is, what you're trying to achieve and, most importantly, where your audience are active. By understanding your audience you can identify where are the best places to engage them - be this online, via social media, or offline via print advertising or telesales.
It is all about being active on social media. The advantage of smaller organisations is that they may feel more comfortable having that more personal style which customers/followers/fans/the public can relate much better to.
Social media for any size business is no longer about marketing and forcing sales. Be patient and they will come over time. What social media is valuable for is being able to have two-way communication with customers. It has given businesses the ability to listen to what customers say about their products/services - and not just with the company itself but between customers!
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Small business and social media
